IF the government is looking for ammunition in support of its drive to reduce welfare spending, the fact that it will plough the savings into schools and hospitals is perhaps one that it ought to stress.

For if not in crisis, the NHS is not far off.

Already in East Lancashire health chiefs are struggling with cash shortfalls of more than £1million that threaten longer waiting lists and cuts in services at hospitals and clinics.

Even the special "winter" injection of cash the government has made after raiding defence budgets seems unlikely to prevent severe strains on health care in the region while developments in mental health and cancer services and for emergency admissions may be shelved.

And it will take a long time for the huge promised savings on administration, resulting from the government's scrapping of the internal market in the NHS, to begin flowing and ease the pressures.

The irony is that though the possible plunge of the NHS into crisis might not be good politically for a Labour government that claims to be its best champion, it may bring home to the public the need for the welfare reforms that it is now finding hard to sell.

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