AN NHS hospital praised by the Prime Minister as a shining example of Britain's public services was plunged into a row over standards last night as it emerged a boy with a broken collarbone had been sent home without an x-ray.

Tony Blair's attempt to portray himself as the champion of public service workers was in danger of backfiring after he walked straight into the cost-cutting row at North Tyneside Hospital.

The mother of nine-year-old Josh Campbell of Wallsend said her son was left in agony after being sent home by staff at the A&E department without an x-ray, despite having broken his shoulder in a playground fall.

In a scathing attack on the NHS, his mother Valerie accused the hospital of not doing so in a deliberate effort to cut costs.

"I blame the doctor for missing the injury, but I think she may have done it because she was following hospital policy," she said.

The Labour-voting schools assistant added: "The way I feel at the moment I would rather not vote at all because I don't think there's anyone you can trust.

"Someone needs to shake up the NHS big style. There are enough pen-pushers and managers sitting around."

Northumbria Healthcare Trust emphatically denied that the decision not to x-ray Josh was down to cost. "It was a clinical decision and we did not feel it was necessary."

During a visit to Newcastle, Mr Blair had praised the "effective, high quality service" of the hospital's A&E department.

As the bruising political debate over the alleged neglect of 94-year-old Rose Addis showed no sign of abating, he accused the Tories of deliberately "running down" public services to soften them up for privatisation.

"They confine themselves to denigrating everything about the public services, saying the services are lousy, so that people feel it's all hopeless, nothing works, that any investment is just wasted money,"

But his claims were angrily denied by Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who accused the Prime Minister of trying to stifle legitimate debate on the NHS.

"This is the ultimate smear in a week of smears from this Government."

Comment - Page 8