CLAIMS that new hospitals built under the controversial private finance initiative may be obsolete before they are finished have been rejected in the region, where three major building projects are under way.

Construction teams are working on new facilities at Middlesbrough's South Cleveland Hospital (£122m), Dryburn Hospital, Durham, (£90m) and Bishop Auckland General Hospital (£67m)

But, according to the King's Fund think-tank, the hospitals built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) are failing to take the needs of local people into account and may become out of date even before the NHS has finished paying for them.

Because individual trusts rather than regional NHS offices commission the hospitals, the needs of the whole local community are not being considered, researchers said.

Hospital schemes should be commissioned at regional level rather than at trust level, it was recommended.

And the whole PFI scheme may prove to be "wasteful and inappropriate", the damning report concluded.

With PFI, hospitals are built by private companies under binding, 30-year contracts and the money repaid over the years.

But critics of the policy say PFI hospitals are not providing enough beds and vital services in the community.

Anthony Harrison, author of the King's Fund report, said: ''The biggest users of hospital care are older people.

''Their health depends on the existence of good quality, primary and community services, working closely with local hospitals.

''Building new hospitals, under 30-year binding contracts with private companies, without also planning community services, could turn out to be both wasteful and inappropriate.''

The report calls for a completely new approach to hospital-building in the NHS.

All new hospitals should be commissioned regionally, not by individual NHS trusts, taking into account the needs of all local people.

A spokeswoman for South Durham Health Care NHS Trust said the long-awaited and overdue redevelopment at Bishop Auckland had been vetted and approved by officials at the NHS Executive's regional office in Durham City, "so it was incorrect to say the project was only supported by the trust".

Dr Stewart Findlay, Bishop Auckland GP and chairman of the Dales Primary Care Group, said: "The old hospital could not have continued as it was and I do not think the new facility will be obsolete in the forseeable future. Even with the new hospital, we will still be short of beds across the county."

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