A PROGRAMME to relocate services at Gravesend and North Kent Hospital (GNK) has been scrapped because of the cost.

The Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley Primary Care Trust (PCT) planned to move clinics currently in the old building, into the new block until the new hospital is built in 2003.

But, at a recent PCT board meeting, the trust revealed the programme would cost £780,000.

It reasoned a better use of public money would be to keep the services where they are for the next 18 months until they can be moved.

Now, former Tory MP for Gravesham, Jacques Arnold, says the clinics should have been moved because they are in “shabby and cramped conditions”.

Mr Arnold believes the “public is becoming sickened by the Government's thrashing about over GNK”.

He said: “The funds for the temporary ward have come directly from the health ministry.

“Now it is recouping the money by scrapping improvements at Gravesend.

“The few remaining departments will continue to be scattered about an otherwise empty site, in shabby and often very cramped conditions.”

A spokesman for the PCT admitted the old block was shabby but said the building would be given a “lick of paint”.

She added: “When we discovered the plan to transfer the services was going to cost £780,000, the regional NHS asked us to look at other options.

“There was the option of borrowing the money from region and paying it back over a period of time.

“But we decided it was not worth doing that, just to move the clinics for 18 months with very little benefit for patients.”