THE DEPARTMENT of Health (DoH) has been forced to make an official apology after wrongly claiming Oxfordshire's cancer patients were the most under-funded in the UK.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust spent just £5,182 on every person suffering from the disease - ranking it as the lowest spending of 153 PCTs nationwide.

Nottingham City PCT was heralded as the best funder, spending an average £17,028 for every cancer patient, in the DoH public expenditure memorandum to the House of Commons Health Select Committee.

But, following complaints from Oxfordshire PCT, DoH staff have now submitted correct funding figures for the select committee.

The actual figure is £6,892 per patient, which means Oxfordshire PCT is not in the top five lowest-spending health authorities.

The trust's figures had been mixed up with neighbouring Buckinghamshire PCT.

Despite its error, the DoH refused to make a statement about the mistake to The Oxford Times.