THE fact that the National Health Service has been chronically underfunded for decades is not in doubt.

But the question of how the Government will finance the future health needs of the country remains unresolved - and the political heat is being turned up.

Last week, The Daily Mirror led its front page with an attack on the Health Secretary under the headline: "Time to bury Alan Milburn."

Yesterday, the front page of The Northern Echo was dominated by the chaos at the region's newest hospital, which was built with the help of private finance.

The catalogue of problems at the £97m University Hospital of North Durham, laid bare before the House of Commons Health Select Committee, made disturbing reading.

Today, there is more cause for concern, with the outgoing chairman of the NHS trust, which runs the University Hospital of North Durham, declaring that the region's next privately-financed hospital in Bishop Auckland is destined to be a white elephant.

For NHS patients, it is a Catch 22 situation. Tying the NHS to 30-year repayment contracts has its dangers. It is like buying a house, only to find that there are not enough bedrooms to cater for a growing family.

But it is clear that, without the private funding, the new hospitals would not have been built.

It is therefore imperative that the new hospitals are established with enough consideration to meet the demands of the NHS - demands which are going to go on growing.

For example, it is hard to understand why the University Hospital of North Durham has fewer beds than Dryburn Hospital which it replaced.

We repeat: the demand for beds is growing, not declining.

Lessons must be learned from the mistakes made in building the first wave of Britain's privately-financed hospitals.

And that means making sure that the staff who work on the front line, and who know the needs of patients better than anyone, are meticulously consulted when plans for new hospitals are drawn up.

Sadly, the problems in North Durham point to that not being the case