The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Alan Milburn) has announced an additional £2.9bn in funding for health authorities. The new total is £37.017bn. Of the new money, £450m is to be spent on treating heart disease and cancer, so that the two areas account for almost 25 per cent of NHS spending in England, £139m will be targeted at cities in the north of England, and £65m will go on cost of living supplements for staff in the south of the country. Mr Milburn guaranteed that, by 2002, three-quarters of eligible patients would receive thrombolytic injections within 30 minutes of diagnosis.