SHOCKING new evidence of problems inside the North-East's newest hospital emerged last night.c MPs investigating the use of private finance in the health service were told of a catalogue of troubles at the £97m University Hospital of North Durham.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons Health Select Committee - which had travelled from London to hear testimony first hand - staff representatives cited a long list of problems at the Durham City site.

l Fire doors are routinely wedged open to allow patients to be wheeled into operating theatres because the new hospital does not have automatic doors

l A pneumatic tube system designed to transport blood samples is so noisy it keeps patients awake, and is so unreliable that samples have "exploded"

l A defective patient-operated buzzer system cannot be muted, also making sleep impossible for many patients.

l Ten beds have had to be mothballed after five trained care staff left.

And last night, after the hearing, it emerged that consultants at the hospital are repeatedly complaining about poor operating theatre lighting, which means they cannot see properly during complex procedures.

The new hospital, which replaced the run-down and outdated Dryburn Hospital, ran into immediate difficulties when it opened in April. Built with only 450 beds, compared with Dryburn's complement of 540, it has struggled to cope with rocketing demand and is failing to hit many waiting list targets.

Critics of the Government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI), including Britain's biggest health union, Unison, have claimed that PFI hospitals are sub-standard and have had to cut staffing to meet the demand from shareholders.

But senior management at the Durham NHS trust have defended the quality of care provided for patients and argued that the loss of beds is more to do with NHS trends than PFI.

The trust has denied patients are being put at risk by inadequate theatre lighting.

Although all the lights meet required standards, it has called in a specialist lighting company to investigate the situation.

MPs toured the hospital and met staff before listening to evidence from NHS officials, private sector spokesmen and staff representatives. Jan Lemmon, lead steward with the trust's Royal College of Nursing branch, gave the most damaging evidence, although she praised the quality of care provided by staff.

She said nurses were working in "organised chaos" and had been put under "tremendous pressure" by the shortage of beds. She complained that many of the teething troubles experienced by the hospital would probably have been sorted out if staff had been properly consulted.

The RCN steward criticised the lack of automatic doors, the noisy and unreliable sample transport system and the defective buzzer system. Ms Lemmon said that while most nurses were "reasonably happy", she warned that poor facilities would not help with recruitment and retention of staff.

"Staff feel their needs are put towards the bottom of the pile. The changing facilities for staff are abysmal and there is a shortage of toilets," she added.

Robin Moss, head of health for Unison's North of England branch, said ten beds remained closed because of staff shortage. "Five trained staff have disappeared in recent weeks," he added.

But Stephen Mason, chief executive of North Durham Health Care NHS Trust, told the MPs: "If we had a publicly-funded hospital, I strongly believe we would have had exactly the same number of beds."

And John Flook, County Durham and Darlington Health Authority's finance director, referring to the region's second PFI hospital - set to open in Bishop Auckland in April - said: "There was no realistic prospect of public sector capital on the scale that was needed for Durham and Bishop Auckland being available."

People in County Durham had waited more than 25 years for the much-needed hospitals and PFI had allowed them to built, he added