AN INDEPENDENT ­Scotland would find it harder to protect NHS ­budgets, according to an analysis by a leading think tank that contradicts Yes campaign claims about the health service.

The politically neutral Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said an independent Scotland would start life with a bigger black hole in its finances than the rest of the UK, making it more difficult to maintain spending on health without making huge cuts to other services.

The IFS argued that, even using the Scottish Government's own, more optimistic forecasts for oil revenues, an independent Scotland would need to borrow or tax more to increase health spending while maintaining other services.

A report co-authored by IFS chief Paul Johnson concluded: "In the short term it is hard to see how independence could allow Scotland to spend more on the NHS than would be possible within a Union where it will have significant tax raising powers and considerable say over ­spending priorities."

The report said health spending was being better protected in England, where budgets were rising by 4 per cent between 2009/10 and 2015/16 despite overall spending cuts of 13 per cent.

In Scotland the health budget will fall by 1 per cent over the same period although overall cuts, at 8 per cent, are lower than across the UK as a whole.

The report said: "It seems that historically, at least, Scottish Governments in Holyrood have placed less priority on funding the NHS in Scotland (and more on funding other services) than governments in Westminster have for England."

It came as 200 medics hit back at Yes campaign claims that privatision of services in England and wider budget cuts would threatened Scotland's devolved NHS.

The Yes campaign made headway with the message that independence is the only way to protect NHS Scotland.

But in a letter organised by the Better Together campaign and signed by leading figures including Professor Alan Rodger, former medical director of the Beatson cancer centre in Glasgow and Dr Neil Dewhurst, former president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the Yes campaign is accused of misleading voters.

The medics write: "Over the last month those who would break up our NHS through a Yes vote have peddled constant lies.

"Those lies have shifted as they have been disproved. "Firstly they claimed we would be forced to privatise. Not true, we have devolution. Then they claimed that NHS budgets in England are being cut. Not true, they have increased year on year."

Dr Willie Wilson, of campaign group NHS for Yes, said: "The immediate danger of a No vote to NHS Scotland lies mainly in the £25 billion of additional austerity cuts which are promised from Westminster from next year ... NHS Scotland would inevitably suffer cuts if there was a No vote."