Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the NHS would be "in trauma" within a decade if Scotland gained independence.

He predicted the NHS in an independent Scotland would be a "diminished service."

He added that currently, despite Theresa May announcing £20bn future funding for the NHS with £2bn expected for Scotland, it is "under-staffed, under-equipped and under-financed."

The Scottish health secretary has dismissed the former Prime Minister's claims, saying the SNP was providing record health funding.

Writing in The Scotsman to mark this week's 70th anniversary of the NHS, Mr Brown stated: "The NHS at 80 years old would, sadly, be in trauma if independence should ever happen.

"What has become clear from the SNP's Growth Commission blueprint - what Nicola Sturgeon calls the foundation for independence - is that public spending would rise less than under Tory austerity and that even then, any new money there is would be eaten up by massive interest rate payments on what would be almost £100bn of new Scottish debt.

"While in both Scotland and the UK, the NHS will need 5% more each year to meet the unprecedented needs of a rising elderly population, the more likely fate of the NHS in an independent Scotland is a diminished service under even more intolerable pressures than now."

A spokesman for Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman said: "This is utter nonsense from Gordon Brown, who knows full well that the biggest threat to Scotland's NHS comes from the very real prospect of a post-Brexit trade deal being forced on us against our will by a Tory UK government.

"That could see our health service becoming a sacrificial pawn in a Tory-Trump trade deal, after the Westminster power grab on Holyrood - and that is what Gordon Brown should be warning of instead of issuing outdated, discredited attacks on independence.

"The SNP is providing record health funding after Labour planned to spend even less on it than the Tories."

The spokesman added independence would enable Scotland to protect the health service from Westminster austerity and Brexit trade deals.