A BLACKPOOL Labour leader has hailed the Government's £56 billion public spending package as a bumper 50th birthday present for the NHS.

Councillor Joan Greenhalgh - who will welcome the Labour conference to the resort in September - said the cash would help steer the town's health and education systems into the new Millennium.

Coun Greenhalgh, president of Blackpool Labour Local Government Committee, was speaking at the annual general meeting of the organisation, which liaises between councillors and party activists.

She told the meeting at the Trades Club: "We are celebrating 50 years of the NHS.

"Perhaps the true significance of the changes of 1948 has been lost on the younger generations. Health care is now classed as a right and easily taken for granted.

"The formation of the NHS was only one of many important socialist measures of that era, it was the Labour Party input to the wartime coalition Government that brought us the NHS."

Young people could not possibly know of the fragmented nature of healthcare before 1948, she said, with money raised by bazaars and flag days.

Coun Greenhalgh praised the work of Blackpool's unitary council.

A minute's silence was observed after the death of Blackpool party stalwart Maggie Dromey, mother-in-law of Cabinet Minister Harriet Harman.

Coun Greenhalgh said Mrs Dromey was a wonderful woman and a tireless worker for the party for so many years.

Other officers elected were as follows: secretary, Bob Harrison; treasurer, Coun Sylvia Taylor; vice-chair, Coun Allan Matthews; social and assistant secretary, Coun Mary Smith; press officer, Jack Croysdill; auditors, Nancy Reeves and Coun Eddie Collett; Labour group representatives, Brian Doherty, Vernon Lund, Bradley Wilcock, Alice Lilly, Nancy Reeves, Kath Rowson.

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