NHS protest on the streets of Dorchester

Campaigners waved ‘Stop the Sale’ signs, mocked up to look like estate agency signs, to raise awareness of their calls to keep the NHS in public hands.

The Save Dorset NHS group said the event in Dorchester’s Cambridge Road was designed to send a message to West Dorset’s MP Oliver Letwin and urge him to make sure Prime Minster David Cameron uses his veto to exclude the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade Partnership (TTIP).

The TTIP is a trade agreement proposed between the European Union and United States that the campaign group fears could open the door to further privatisation of public health services.

A spokesman for the group said: “It’s the biggest bilateral trade deal ever negotiated and threatens to make the sell-off of the NHS irreversible by giving the profits of corporations precedence over national lawmakers.

“TTIP could give US multinationals, or any firm with American investors, new rights to sue the UK government if it ever tried to take privatised health services back into public hands.

“Oliver Letwin has refused to intervene on behalf of his constituents who have been calling for his help.”

West Dorset is the latest constituency to join the mass movement against the proposed agreement.

More than 100,000 people have taken part in action across the country. They have made please to MPs from constituencies from the Forest of Dean to Dumfries and Galloway.

Local resident and Save Dorset NHS campaigner Sean Gray said: “Oliver Letwin must push David Cameron to use his veto to remove the NHS from this EU trade deal.

"Residents expect their MP to defend the NHS from an irreversible sell off. You would think a Tory MP would be taking up the fight against an EU trade deal on behalf of his constituents.

"Oliver Letwin is either going to protect the NHS or he is going to put the corporate interests of the EU and US ahead of the British people.”

Mr Letwin was not available to comment when contacted by the Echo yesterday.