IN SUCCESSIVE Budgets and spending plans, the Government has given many additional millions of pounds to the National Health Service. All of it is correct; all of it is welcome. In tackling coronary heart disease and cancer, in which Britain lags desperately behind the rest of Europe, the Government has its priorities in the right place.

The public would be exceedingly nave if they expected things to get better overnight. As Health Secretary Alan Milburn says, it takes eight years to train a heart surgeon. Such highly-skilled people cannot be conjured up overnight. The shortage of them is a direct result of many long years of under-investment.

Yet the most worrying aspect of the case we highlight on our front page today is that the Tynemouth man's operation at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital appears to have been cancelled for a fifth time not because of a shortage of surgeons, but because of a lack of post-operation beds.

These highly-skilled surgeons - the same ones that Mr Milburn is hurriedly training, the same ones the country is crying out for - were ready to go to work, but were unable to because of a lack of beds.

It seems that little has progressed in the NHS since The Northern Echo launched its Chance to Live campaign one-and-half years ago, despite all the promising words, good intentions and dedicated efforts of Mr Milburn.

On first sight, this case appears to have wider implications for the rest of us. If a man who has been seriously ill since February is unable to have his operation because of a shortage of beds, what chance for the rest of us when the flu crisis kicks in, as it inevitably will later this winter?

And, as Mr Milburn must be well aware, a flu crisis is the last thing the Government can afford so close to an election.

This case has been highlighted by the Conservative prospective Parliamentary candidate for Tynemouth. While castigating the Government for being unable to speedily make its money work in the NHS, we must also be fair and remind ourselves that, in the case of coronary care, it is previous Conservative governments who helped reduce the NHS to this level.

This week the current Tory leader William Hague will out-line his eye-catching plans for tax cuts. These will amount to anything up to 4p off income tax - but if they mean the equivalent cut in public spending so that people continue to have life-saving operations cancelled wily-nily, they will not be worth voting for