Labour cronies outnumber Tories 4 to 1 on NHS boards

The figures, released under freedom of information laws, prompted fresh concern about a culture of cronyism in public appointments.

They showed that 312 people with declared affiliations to the Labour Party have been appointed to local health trust posts and other NHS appointments, compared to 77 Tories and 53 Liberal Democrats.

In 2001, the then Health Secretary Alan Milburn handed his power to directly appoint members of NHS boards to a new NHS appointments commission.

The Government was forced into the move after an independent assessment concluded that health trust boards were being packed by Labour politicians, appointed on the basis of their loyalty to the party rather than ability.

But the new figures suggest there is still a huge bias in NHS appointments. Particular concerns have been raised in Hull, where the primary care trust includes two former Labour councillors and two serving Labour councillors.

In Cambridge, former Labour MP Anne Campbell was appointed chair of the board of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust in October 2005, just six months after losing her seat in the last General Election.

Health minister Jane Kennedy was sacked from the Department of Health last year after opposing the appointment of Labour's former Liverpool council chief executive Sir David Henshaw as a local health authority chairman.

Miss Kennedy, who has just be reappointed to the Government as a Treasury minister by Gordon Brown, claimed a Downing Street adviser told her Sir David would be a "really good" appointment.

She said: "It was made clear to me that as a minister I had absolutely no influence at all, and my opinion should not even be expressed, on the appointment.

"That view was put to me by a special adviser in Number 10, who has open access to the chair of the appointments commission and thinks this a really good appointment.

"So I was being told the appointments commission, rightly so, is independent of political influence, but then the penny dropped that only certain political influence gets through."

Tory shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien, who uncovered the figures, said: "Patients need to have faith that those who run the NHS will defend their local NHS services from political interference by Labour Ministers.

"This simply cannot happen with so many Labour supporters appointed to run the NHS at the frontline.

"Gordon Brown has promised to make public appointments more accountable, but there's no sign of this happening in the Health Service.

"We have pledged to take politics out of the NHS. This must include not only the abolition of Gordon Brown's politically-driven targets, but also the ending of the politicisation of local NHS organisations.

"We want to see patients and members of the public, not politicians, running local NHS services."

A Department of Health spokesman said: "The Appointments Commission was established in April 2001 to appoint all chairs and non-executives serving in the NHS.

"It is completely free from political interference. Ministers have no responsibility for making these appointments.

"The only role Ministers have is setting essential criteria for particular appointments. These never state there must be a particular political affiliation."