CALLS for NHS funding to be increased so a “postcode lottery” surrounding health services in York is ended have been made by one of the city’s MPs.

Speaking in a House of Commons debate on the impact of Government policies on living standards, Hugh Bayley, who represents York Central, said Chancellor George Osborne should ensure the NHS budget rises in real terms.

Mr Bayley said figures he obtained from the Commons library showed that, in the first year of the current Government, the budget for local primary care trusts increased by 2.2 per cent, but actually fell by 1.8 per cent once the Retail Price Index, a measure of inflation, was taken into account.

Mr Bayley said: “York is back to a postcode lottery where patients are being denied a growing range of treatments for obesity, infertility, back pain and minor surgery which are available to NHS patients in neighbouring areas and other parts of the country.

“I am pressing for the Government to provide adequate funding for NHS North Yorkshire and York and the NHS nationally so patients get the care their doctors say they need.”