Critically ill patients have been denied proper treatment because of shortages in intensive care, doctors have said.

The Intensive Care Society has accused the government of misleading the public about the number of intensive care beds supplied to cope with the winter pressures on the NHS.

In an open letter to health secretary Alan Milburn, the society said that although extra cash was supplied to the NHS, there was no tangible evidence it was used for an extra 100 beds.

Many patients who needed the beds went without, it said. The society, which represents doctors and nurses, called for an urgent assessment of the number of specialist beds the NHS needs to ease the pressure on the service.

Giles Morgan, president of the Intensive Care Society, said: "We would like to know exactly where they are because the membership of the Intensive Care Society believe that they don't seem to have any more beds than they did last year."

Patients' anguish

The comments follow a series a high profile cases which have exposed weaknesses in the system.

Patient Mavis Skeet, 74, was to have had surgery for cancer of the oesophagus at Leeds General Infirmary, but the operation was cancelled several times, and the condition is now inoperable.

Another patient at Bedford Hospital, Doris Brown, had surgery for the same illness cancelled seven times and was finally operated on this week.

Her daughter Jo Brown, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme of the agonising wait.

She said: "I was watching her losing weight, she was unable to eat and gradually deteriorated and we were very powerless to do anything about it, so we were just watching mum die.

"We had faith in the NHS but that all fell apart by this all being repeatedly cancelled.

"I didn't realise that getting an ITU bed was a bit like the National Lottery, I thought that you got a bed based on your clinical need and not just the luck of the draw."

Mrs Brown's anaesthetist at Bedford, David Niblett, said that specialist acute beds were in too short supply.

"Government policy should be directed towards firstly getting more resources to the NHS and the acute sector in general. This is a known problem, it is not a new problem.

"The planning process in the NHS must be able to be speeded up and to take the relevant information into account.

"That would of course mean listening to the clinicians on the shop floor and that is something that they patently do not do at the moment."

His views were echoed by Dr Mick Nielsen, consultant in charge at Southampton General Hospital intensive care unit, and a former president of the Intensive Care Society.

He said: "It is staggering for health ministers to say that the service is coping. Their statements reassuring the public that patients needing intensive care are getting it are total nonsense.

"Statements like that display either a staggering lack of understanding or a callous economy with the truth.

"We have got data to show that even during the non-winter months there are patients who need intensive care who are not getting it who are having to be managed on ordinary hospital wards."

'Gagging' accusations

The latest criticisms follow an uncomfortable week for the government, in which it has faced mounting criticism over an under-funded NHS struggling to cope with the flu crisis.

Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to use a television interview on Sunday to reassure voters that the government is tackling the problems.

He is expected to use a long-arranged interview on BBC One's Breakfast With Frost programme to say that although the service has problems, Labour is the only party which can fix them.

He and chancellor Gordon Brown are also expected to use this year's spending review to promise billions of extra pounds for the health service.

But Mr Blair's aides are being accused of trying to "gag" a leading medical expert and Labour peer who criticised the government's policies.

Fertility expert Lord Winston sparked a furore with a magazine interview in which he was quoted as saying that the NHS was "deteriorating" under Labour.

However, on Friday he issued a statement insisting that the article did not reflect his views, and pledged his support for Labour's health policies.

Shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox said the affair showed that "spin doctors take priority over real doctors in Tony Blair's government".