BURNLEY MP Kitty Ussher claimed she was proud' of Labour's record with the NHS on the day health bosses announced that local hospitals will lose 417 beds.

Mrs Ussher came under heavy fire after making the comment in an interview on the Guardian newspaper's website on the day health chiefs in East Lancashire announced a shake-up of care in the region.

But the Labour MP, who has spearheaded the campaign to save intensive care beds and A and E at Burnley General from the axe, hit back, blaming financial blunders at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust for the measures.

She added it was the increase in government funding which had helped slash waiting lists as well as pay for the modernisation of Burnley General Hospital.

In the interview, Mrs Ussher, said: "The thing about the NHS is something that the opposition are trying to make a huge story.

"Everyone knows that Gordon Brown is the man who raised National Insurance contributions in order to push money into the NHS. I'm extremely proud of what we're doing.

"This thing about hospitals being in financial problems is a very small percentage of the total."

The East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust has been riddled with debt for the past three years, although finance chiefs said earlier this month they hoped the authority could be out of the red by April after racking up debts of over £10million.

Kitty Ussher's comments came as health chiefs revealed a raft of major changes to services in Blackburn and Burnley by 2009 and as other Trusts across the UK axed jobs.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Burnley Council and former mayor Gordon Birtwistle said: "I think we have to accept that Kitty Ussher will toe the party line and compliment the party at every opportunity, irrespective of the damage being done to the town she represents.

"If she thinks Labour is doing a good job when half the service at the hospital is being cut, that just dumbfounds me.

"If this is how she is going to act it is time she stepped aside and let someone else have a go."

And Peter Doyle, leader of the Conservatives in Burnley, said: "I am amazed at Kitty Ussher's reported comments in view of what is happening in Burnley.

"I find it astounding. People may ask whether she was elected to support the people of Burnley or to support the Labour government."

A third of all beds across the two hospitals for overnight patients, 417, will be axed by the end of 2009.

The public is being asked to choose whether to have emergency pregnancy care, gynaecology and neo-natal intensive care beds at Blackburn or to have facilities to deal with complicated births at Burnley.

The hospital which does not take on these services would have "community birthing services, led by midwives, for women without complications."

Mrs Ussher said it was not the government which was repsonsible for ELHT's financial problems and she pointed to the 10,000 strong petition she organised opposing the stripping of services from Burnley General as well as the numerous meeting she held with the hospital bosses and raising the issue in Parliament as evidence she did represent the town's views.

She added that financial mismanagement of hospitals was not new but it was being exposed because of the government's new measures and she would be studying in detail the full proposals when published.

Mrs Ussher said: "I always do what I believe is right for my constituents. One of the reasons I am Labour is I do not think any other government would invest in places like Burnley.

"But of course if I think what is being proposed isn't good enough for my constituents I will say so without hesitation.

"Gordon Birtwistle always calls for my resignation. I think its because he's grumpy about being rejected three times by the people of Burnley in his attempts to be the town's MP himself."