NORTH Ayrshire and Arran MP Katy Clark hit out yesterday at Scottish Nationalists’ “desperate scaremongering” over health service privatisation in the dying days of the nation’s independence referendum campaign.

SNP leader Alex Salmond has been whipping up fears over an NHS sell-off north of the border, which along with its Welsh counterpart is run by the devolved government.

The issue has been at the centre of increasingly heated exchanges in recent weeks with First Minister Salmond issuing dire warnings that only independence can protect Scotland’s health service.

But Labour leftwinger Ms Clark advised Scots not to swallow a line that she said was purely designed to shore up support for a Yes vote on September 18.

“If there were even the remotest chance of the NHS being privatised the Yes campaign would have been shouting about it for the last two years — not desperately scaremongering in the last two weeks,” she said.

Ms Clark pointed out that Scotland already had control over the direction of its health services.