Tory election pledges to put more funds into the struggling NHS were slammed as an “unfunded spending commitment” by shadow chancellor ed Balls yesterday.

Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed that he will set out plans for an extra £2 billion a year for frontline NHS services when he delivers his Autumn Statement on Wednesday.

Labour has already promised to inject £2.5bn into the NHS by introducing a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million.

The war of words between Tories and Labour is hotting up in the run-up to next year’s May general election, with neither party assured of victory, according to recent polls.

Mr Balls said the government created the crisis in the NHS through its £3bn reorganisation of the service and accused Mr Osborne of racking up billions in spending commitments without any explanation of how he could pay for them.

Mr Balls said: “This is a typical Tory pattern — a winter crisis and then crisis money coming after.

“The Conservatives are coming along now with unfunded commitments. The deficit is huge. The Tories are really putting the NHS in danger.

“We will, over and above their plans, put in a further £2.5bn. Whatever they do we need more money for the NHS — £2.5bn more for 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs.”

He accused the Tories of promising more misery for the poorest people in Britain by axing a further £7bn from welfare spending to pay for tax cuts.

The Chancellor has been told he will have to admit on Wednesday that public finances are in worse shape than the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasted at the time of the last Budget in March.

Paul Johnson, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, put it down to poor earnings growth and other tax receipts.

He said that even with the Chancellor’s promised squeeze on welfare benefits, there would have to be big cuts to other public services in the next Parliament.

“The consequence will be that by 2018 we are looking at spending cuts of one third in a whole slew of public services,” he said.