IT is not the availability of funds which is holding up the building of the new Malvern Hospital. There are without doubt many sources of funds from which the South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust could borrow money, some more appropriate than others. The problem is the cost of doing so in terms of the interest or rent which will have to be paid over a long period - as the Worcestershire Royal Hospital is now finding to its distress.

I believe it will prove to have been unrealistic for the SWPCT to be suggesting - as its acting-chief executive did at the public meeting in Malvern - that the hospital can be built at no extra cost to the health budget. At some point the Government must readjust its priorities to allow proper financial scope for the building of new community hospitals, including one for Malvern, whose present hospital is coming to the end of its distinguished working life.

My view is, and it has been for some time, that by kidding themselves, and us, that a clever deal with a developer, free to the taxpayer, is around the corner, the SWPCT is merely putting off the moment when the Government will have to take the necessary decisions for Malvern. I hope I am wrong.

Sir Michael Spicer MP, House of Commons, London.