Manor House Hospital has pulled the plug on what would have been the country's first private Accident and Emergency department.

Its managing director John Taylor returned from holiday last week and realised what no-one else had: that the hospital in North End Road, Golders Green, was not licenced to run an A&E.

"To be honest the facilities are not here. My concern was that what started off as an out of hours GP facility had become much larger."

Susan Hawkins, administrator of Lifeline, which had planned to open the service on Monday, said it was still looking within the borough of Barnet for an alternative location for the A&E.

"We intend to open the out of hours GP service within the next four weeks," she said. But Mr Taylor doubted if a private A&E was commercially viable.

"The cost of running an A&E is astronomical -- you have got to have doctors and nurses standing by. It is an open-ended commitment and I don't think any patients would expect to pay for it."

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