A £30 MILLION deficit in Cornwall's health service is not being written off, despite a request from Truro MP Matthew Taylor.

He said the financial crisis faced by the county's health service was serious and the decision by health minister John Hutton not to write off the debt was "a slap in the face".

Despite independent research showing that flaws in Government NHS funding formulas benefit urban communities at the expense of rural areas like Cornwall, the Minister said that Cornwall's NHS had received a "fair share of resources".

Accusing Cornwall's health community of having overspent in the past, he insisted that responsibility for solving the problem remained with local health chiefs and the Strategic Health Authority (SHA).

Prior to Christmas, a meeting arranged by Mr Taylor between South West Liberal Democrat MPs and Thelma Holland, chief executive of the SHA, had to be postponed. Mr Taylor is re-arranging it for early in the new year.

"This preposterous claim that Cornwall has already received a 'fair share of resources' is a real slap in the face for our local NHS," said Mr Taylor.

"It was disappointing enough to be told by central Government that it would not intervene to help resolve the current financial crisis.

"But now, Labour ministers seem determined to add insult to injury by blaming NHS trusts for a deficit for which they were never responsible.

"If the funding was adequate in the past, why are they putting it up now?"