A SERIOUS health complaint is once again sweeping the country.

This condition is financial rather than medical - although it could have very serious health side-effects.

Selby and York Primary Care Trust is the latest victim of the no-cash virus, an old-style complaint which some experts thought had disappeared with the arrival of Tony Blair and his promises to improve the National Health Service.

Despite the obvious good intentions of New Labour, and the undoubted extra millions invested in health, something seems to have gone very wrong.

Only the other day it was reported that a cash-strapped NHS trust in Oxford was scrapping the operation that cured the Prime Minister's heart complaint.

Now NHS patients in this region face what some see as an alarming raft of health cuts as the trust tries to deal with a debt of £23 million.

Suggested areas for savings include cutting back on the number of outpatient appointments and minimising the number of patients admitted to hospital as emergencies. This newspaper has already reported that York Hospital has been asked to delay routine operations until the next financial year.

What should remain paramount during all this is the health and welfare of patients. No patient should suffer extra anxiety or pain because of these cuts or, heaven forbid, die as a consequence of the new financial strictures.

All parties involved need to work together to ensure that all suffering is kept to the minimum - and someone, somewhere, needs to work out exactly how this cash crisis happened and what can be done to cure it.

Updated: 09:03 Thursday, January 05, 2006