I HAVE the privilege of being a member of the House of Commons public accounts committee.

The committee was established by Gladstone to be the guardian of value for money in our public finances.

More than 100 years later, twice a week we take evidence. Sadly, all too often we find evidence of waste and poor stewardship of taxpayers’ money.

This week we published our report on the Private Finance Initiative, used by the last Government to fund many hospital projects, including Brentwood Community Hospital. We found the Department of Health was not able to guarantee value for money from the contracts.

The fact is that money wasted is money which should have been spent on patient care.

This brings me to the current state of South West Essex PCT. Recently, many treatments have been cancelled by the PCT, including IVF and cataract operations.

As a Government we promised to protect the NHS budget from cuts. We have held to our promise.

South West Essex is currently embarked on a process of cost-cuttting. This is entirely due to poor management which has led to an overspend in excess of £50million which now has to be addressed. How did it get into such a mess?

Well, while the last Government was busy throwing money it didn’t have at the NHS, PCTs were told to spend, spend, spend.

So they took on 100 backroom staff in the last two years.

Meanwhile, Basildon Hospital’s reputation took a battering and many patients – understandably – wanted treatment elsewhere. The PCT funded treatment in other hospitals as well as treatment to enable Basildon Hospital to maintain capacity.

And they spent money building a new under-used community hospital in Brentwood, which was far bigger than required and will be an enduring cost in the PCT’s budget No-one has been held to account for this overspend, with the result that patients perceive this to be a direct result of the Government’s programme. It is not. The responsibility for this overspend rests firmly with the management of the PCT. It is both disappointing and bad for public confidence that no-one has taken responsibility.