FYLDE Coast NHS hospitals are in line for a £3m boost to help cut waiting lists.

The cash comes as part of an extra £40.7million announced by health secretary Frank Dobson for hospitals nationwide on Tuesday (April 28).

The aim is to fulfil the Labour Party's pre-election pledge last year to cut waiting lists by 100,000 in the lifetime of the Government.

So far, the lists have actually risen by 100,000.

Mr Dobson said the Government had now injected an extra £2bn into the NHS since coming into office.

In the past year he had met all 100 health authority chiefs and he said: "I have left them in no doubt that I - and the patients for whom the NHS exists - expect results with this large amount of money.

"I will not tolerate excuses - they are merely the patches with which we hope to repair the garments of failure."

Blackpool Victoria Hospital chief executive David Gill welcomed the extra cash, but added that more money was needed on a permanent basis to resolve the waiting list problem.

Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden said: "I will be monitoring closely how the local health authorities make use of this money.

"It's important it goes into front-line patient care and that cash also goes into primary care to help prevent people needing to go on waiting lists in the first place."

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