Swine flu spending nearly hit £5m

Hospitals and health trusts across the West Midlands forked out almost £5 million on the swine flu outbreak, it emerged today.

Most of the money was spent on stockpiling vaccines and buying new equipment to cope.

New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton spent the most, with £2.5m set aside. A total of 101 patients tested positive for the flu, but no-one died. David Loughton, chief executive of

The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, said most of the cash was spent on 10 new ventilators.

"We bought the ventilators which cost between £35,000 and £100,000. We were told we may need to keep people alive. They are being used now in intensive care units. The money was also spent on drugs. I don't think it was a waste of money. It remains to be seen if it could still come back."

Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust spent £700,000 on funding a vaccination programme delivered by GPs in the city and 27,700 doses were given out. NHS Walsall, the town's primary care trust, coughed up £209,141 to fight the virus.

An extra £223,000 was allocated to the trust from the Department of Health which covered the cost of vaccinations, although only £120,603 of the cash was spent, with the remaining allocation returned to the DoH.

A total of 54 people tested positive for the virus, with two dying, and 24,715 doses were given out. Dudley PCT forked out around £84,276 on the pandemic, with 45 people testing positive. In the town, 14,837 vaccines were given out.

At Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, around £360,000 was spent on combating the virus. Meanwhile, Sandwell PCT spent £285,326 and gave out 11,483 vaccines.

NHS Worcestershire, the primary care trust in the county, forked out £100,000 and there were 29 unconfirmed cases of the flu. Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust spent £47,271 and South Staffordshire PCT spent £417,842 during the outbreak.

Walsall Hospitals spent £36,000 on the pandemic.