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health secretary said he was contacted by 22 trusts dealing with the growing burden of private finance contracts

Increased costs paid to hospitals in the plans for private financing of the initiative is to bring the NHS body "brink of financial collapse" and pay attention to patients at risk, the Secretary of the Health has warned.

Andrew Lansley said he had been contacted by 22 trusts struggling to cope with the growing burden of PFI contracts, a policy of the previous Labour government, which uses private capital to build hospitals and NHS is left with an annual fee or "mortgage". Among them, trusts run more than 60 hospitals.

Speaking on the Today Show on BBC Radio 4, Lansley said. "We will not allow financial meltdown hospitals

"But if they were simply make the Labour Party was in government, which would see hundreds of millions of pounds each year will take what they could take to improve services for patients to pay for PFI projects updated for decades. "

added that patient care could be at risk in the areas covered by the 22 trusts, saying, ". We are looking at a risk to services in their areas, "

Buckinghamshire, Oxford Radcliffe, Bristol North and Portsmouth are understood to trusts in difficulty.

The Ministry of Health said there is £ 12.6 billion NHS PFI contracts, with some trusts pay the regime until 2050. The annual accounts are expected to increase 75% to over £ 2.5 billion over the next 18 years, after the recession took its toll on payments.

, Lansley said. "As the economy has led to work for parts of the NHS on the verge of financial collapse may require solutions to these difficult problems, but we will help the NHS to overcome."

John Appleby, chief economist for health policy charity the King's Fund, told the BBC he was not convinced by the argument that NHS PFI had brought on board the collapse.