A CONSULTANT who took up charity running to buy vital medical equipment for children has been singled out for national praise.

Dr Bill Lamb, a consultant paediatrician at Bishop Auckland General Hospital was so frustrated at the lack of NHS funding to buy £2,500 a time insulin pumps for children he started raising funds by running.

In the past year, Dr Lamb has run 1,700 miles and raised more than £45,000 so children can manage their diabetes without the need to inject up to five times a day.

Now the outspoken consultant, who has criticised the North-East NHS for failing to fund insulin pumps, appears in a new publication from the British Medical Association called the, "A to Z of Doctors Making A Difference".

A foreword from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, praises "this collection of inspiring examples of doctors leading new ways of providing quality patient care."

Ironically, considering Dr Lamb's decision that he had to take up running to buy the pumps his patients needed, Mr Blair talks about doctors who "go the extra mile" for their patients.

However, he adds that the Government has put record investment into the NHS.

Recently he wrote to the Department of Health declaring: "There is something ironic about children living in the constituency of the Prime Minister in the fourth richest country in the world dependent on a middle-aged paediatrician running for charity to provide them with an essential item of medical equipment. I know of nowhere else in the country that has such an appallingly poor provision for children's diabetes care."