GORDON BROWN has launched a passionate defence of the NHS and claimed oil reserves are not enough to pay for the public service pledges in an independent Scotland.

The former Prime Minister urged voters on September 18 to "think twice" before backing ­independence, telling an audience in Glasgow: "When it comes to the NHS and social security it makes no sense to break that link."

At a gathering of the Labour faithful at one of the city's Commonwealth Games venues, and flanked by the party's ­Scottish leader Johann Lamont, Mr Brown said £950 million more came to Scotland than if health spending was determined solely by the country's population size.

Mr Brown said: "There is no point getting rid of the unified funding of the NHS. Every year we spend £2,115 for every Scot on health care. In England that is £1,912. That's £200 less spend in England, in Wales it's even less.

"The reason is we fund the NHS on the basis of need. It is necessary we spend more in ­Scotland because of need and rural areas. It means £90m more is spent than an allocation based on population would allow."

But nationalist MSP Kenneth Gibson said: "Gordon Brown's call for a 'unified' NHS funding set-up would only increase the risk to Scotland's NHS from Westminster's privatisation agenda.

"We cannot allow that to happen and only a Yes vote will truly protect the health service we value so much.

"The fact is that oil is a fantastic bonus to our economy, not the basis of it, and anti-independence politicians are fooling nobody in their attempts to portray it as some kind of burden to an independent Scotland."