SHADOW Health Secretary Andy Burnham has told The Northern Echo he felt “a moral obligation” to revive the stalled project to build a new super-hospital in the North-East if Labour win the next election.

Mr Burnham, who was in the North-East to take part in a health summit organised by the Association of North East Councils, promised that the £300m Wynyard Hospital scheme would be “at the front of the queue” if he returns to his old job as Health Secretary next year.

It was as Health Secretary in 2010 that Mr Burnham visited the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust to announce that the new hospital had got the go-ahead and would be open by 2015.

But the incoming Coalition Government decided the scheme was too expensive and cancelled the project.

Since then the North Tees and Hartlepool Trust has been trying to secure Government support for a slimmed-down, cheaper version of the new hospital.

This process was suspended until after the election by the trust last week after what it described as a lack of “high-level” political support.

Mr Burnham said: “I haven’t got the books in front of me but I feel a moral obligation to the people of this area. I came and promised them a new hospital. It would be still the front of the queue as far as I am concerned.”

The MP for Leigh revealed that the original Wynyard project had been signed off by both the Department of Health and the Treasury.

“In fact the Department of Health said to me that they considered it the highest capital priority. So to be here five years later when it could have been built is hugely frustrating,” he added.

In his speech Mr Burnham praised the North-East as having the best public sector partnerships in the country.

He said this would stand them in good stead for his proposed National Health and Care Service, creating single health and social care commissioning budgets to purchase what he called “whole person” care.

The Shadow Health Secretary warned that without a greater emphasis on integrated health and social care - helping to care for more patients in their own homes and preventing unnecessary hospital admissions the NHS would come under intolerable pressure.

He urged the North-East to oppose any attempt to set up an English parliament, which would result in an even more London-centric Government.