Hospital's funding already increased - Blair

The hospital has 23 operating theatres and 953 beds

Tony Blair has responded to concerns about overcrowding at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital by stating that funding has already been increased for the facility.

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb of North Norfolk had expressed concern about a shortage of beds and money.

He said more than 10 operations a week are cancelled because of the bed shortage and that the hospital was headed for a £3m deficit.

The prime minister said the government had already "increased the funding for that hospital and the health authority way beyond anything the Liberal Democrats ever asked us to".

Blair: "Facilities are superb"

"The Norwich PFI is a hospital I visited myself, and I can tell him that the facilities in that hospital are superb facilities", Mr Blair said.

"The staff do an absolutely excellent job."

Mr Lamb said in a statement issued on Thursday: "I agree with the prime minister that the staff and facilities at the new hospital are superb.

"The problem is that it was built too small."

Government cash

He said Mr Blair had "failed to answer my question about what steps would be taken to meet the shortfall of beds".

"So I will be writing to him today to ask the question again."

Mr Lamb said he would confirm his statistics in his letter to the prime minister.

The £230m hospital, one of the first built under the government's private finance initiative, was offered £200,000 by the government in January to resolve a bed crisis.