BRITAIN: A furiouos political row about the hospital treatment of a 94-year-old woman intensified yesterday as the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, hit back at Conservative accusations of "lies and smears".
As the Health Secretary, Mr Alan Milburn, visited the north London hospital at the centre of the row, Labour and the Conservatives exchanged political blows.
The British Medical Association joined the dispute, calling for a new code of conduct governing patient confidentiality.
The bitter exchanges continued after the Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, followed up his attack on the government during Prime Minister's Question Time by accusing Downing Street of engaging in "smears" and breaching the privacy of three patients in an attempt to defend standards at the Whittington Hospital.
The row erupted after the family of Mrs Rose Addis complained that health staff at the hospital left her for three days with blood on her hands and feet after she was admitted on Sunday following a fall.
Defending Downing Street's role in the dispute, Mr Blair denied any information had been released "that was not already in the public domain".
Officials spoke to the media in detail about three cases in which former patients had complained about their treatment at the Whittington but Mr Blair said the briefing was justified because the families had already released their details when they spoke to the media in public statements.
The hospital is disputing claims by relatives of Mrs Addis and yesterday demanded an apology from Mr Duncan Smith, who is MP for Mrs Addis's daughter, after he accused the hospital of participating in a "culture of deceit" about her treatment.
Insisting he would not apologise, Mr Duncan Smith also hit out at suggestions made by the hospital that Mrs Addis was racist because she had refused treatment by ethnic minority nurses. The hospital later withdrew the allegation.