Hospital cuts are bigger threat than Iraq, Chisholm told

• Election threat over health cuts

• Decision over plans to wait for HNS study

• Audit Scotland wants 'greater clarity' over budget

Story in full MALCOLM Chisholm, the Executive’s health minister, was yesterday warned that public anger over proposed hospital cuts poses a greater electoral threat to the Labour Party in Scotland than unease over the war in Iraq.

At a private meeting with MPs in London, Labour members including Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, left Mr Chisholm in no doubt about their unhappiness at the proposed closure of hospitals across the country.

"There was a degree of unease being impressed on Malcolm," said one MP with considerable understatement. Hospitals across Scotland are being threatened with closure or merger, and many are in areas represented by Labour MPs - Mr Cook’s Livingston constituency includes St John’s Hospital, for instance.

Mr Chisholm has responded to pressure from Labour MPs and local campaigners by promising not to take any decisions on new health-board plans to close clinics until an NHS study has been completed.

That pledge got a cautious welcome yesterday from some MPs, including David Cairns, the member for Greenock and Inverclyde, who is fighting to save Inverclyde Royal.

"The game is changing," Mr Cairns said, though he added: "We’re not breaking out the champagne yet."

Meanwhile, in another blow to the beleaguered minister, Scotland’s public-spending watchdog said yesterday that the Executive is failing to explain how pouring billions of pounds into health services is improving patient care.

Audit Scotland wants to see greater clarity on how NHS Scotland’s 7 billion budget is being spent.

Robert Black, the Auditor General, told the Scottish Parliament’s audit committee in Edinburgh that an absence of "relevant and reliable" data made it difficult to know where the money was going.