DESPITE the furious debate about foundation hospitals, North-East academics are not impressed by the Government's supposedly radical plans.

The Government was given a bloody nose by delegates at the Labour Party conference this week when a motion attacking foundation hospitals was passed.

But most commentators believe the Government will not be deflected from its plan to give elite hospitals more freedom.

Professor David Hunter, head of health policy and management at Durham University's Queen's Campus at Stockton, said the Government's policy "seems to be a huge distraction from what is already a great reform agenda."

Prof Hunter said he was not sure hospital managers and health professionals were ready for greater public involvement in running the NHS.

He expressed concerns that by making foundation hospitals "citadels of excellence disconnected from the rest of the community" it could create tensions with local primary care trusts.

"It makes for an odd relationship and far more adversarial that it should be," he added.

Prof Hunter said it seemed that the Government's health policies were "not connected, they come along in isolation to each other."

Professor Alan Maynard, head of health economics at York University said; "If we look back at the reign of Mrs Thatcher she turned all the hospitals into trusts in the 1990s and very little changed. It is quite possible it will be much ado about nothing.

"The whole idea that foundation trusts will be more independent is an interesting idea because the money will still have to come from the local primary care trusts and contracts will still have to be agreed with them."

Prof Hunter said the challenge for the Government was to demonstrate that foundation hospitals would make a difference.

"One of the problems is that we still haven't got a good way of measuring the performance of clinicians in the NHS," he added.