SURELY the NHS will have to step into the breach being threatened by a funding crisis for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign?

Currently the charity funds a regional care adviser and a part-time adult specialist physiotherapist at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

But with the recession biting, it is likely to pull its funding, a massive blow for sufferers of the condition which causes muscles to progressively weaken.

It has ploughed £500,000 into these posts and has surely done its bit.

There is no way such an organisation would be cutting its funding for such vital positions unless it was absolutely necessary.

The NHS has been fortunate to have received the help it has so far.

Of course our local services have been under strain.

There have been several postcode lottery funding scandals where the root of the problem has been choices which have had to be made over where the NHS pound is best spent.

But the South Central Strategic Health Authority must sit down with the charity and discuss what can be done in this situation.

The charity’s half a million over several years deserves that respect.