HEALTH secretary Alan Milburn announced a £450m tonic for the NHS last night.

The cash will be spent on cutting waiting times, providing new drugs and improving anti-smoking services to reduce deaths from cancer and coronary heart disease.

By the end of next year, patients with testicular cancer, leukaemia and children with cancer will wait a maximum of one month between seeing a GP and receiving treatment.

By 2002, three-quarters of heart attack victims will receive life-saving clotbusting drugs within half an hour of being treated.

The maximum waiting time for operations will also fall from 18 months to 15 months by 2002, Mr Milburn said.

The scandal of the UK's heart patient waiting lists was highlighted by The Northern Echo's Chance To Live Campaign which was launched following the tragic death of Darlington man Ian Weir.

The 38-year-old father-of-two died of a heart attack while waiting for the bypass operation that would have saved his life.

Mr Milburn vowed that spending on ironing out health inequalities is to be doubled to £130m, with extra funding for poorer areas, including Newcastle.

For the first time, spending allocations for health authorities in England was announced for three years instead of one.

Health authorities are to get an average increase of 8.5 per cent from April next year, amounting to about £29m more each.

They were also guaranteed a rise of at least six per cent for the next two years, with a £100m performance fund to drive up standards and reward quality.

However, as the Health Secretary made his announcement, it was revealed that seven North-East trusts have called for help from a Government task force set up to help reduce medical mishaps in the Health Service.

One of the trusts - North Tees and Hartlepool - has been short-listed for a national customer service award.

The others are: County Durham and Darlington Priority Services; Northumberland Mental Health Trust; Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service; Newcastle City Health and Gateshead Health Trust.

The little-known NHS Clinical Governance Support Team was established by the Government earlier this year to help hospitals to improve the quality of clinical care.

It hit the headlines earlier this month when it was announced that the team had been asked to work with the crisis-hit Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

Bosses at The Friarage are still coping with the aftermath of the scandal of bungling gynaecologist Richard Neale, who was struck off this summer after being found guilty of professional misconduct.

Steve O'Neill, spokesman for the Clinical Governance Support Team (CGST), said the aim of the exercise was to provide "safe, high-quality health care that is open, accountable and patient centered."

Friarage upbeat - Page 1