A mission to rescue the NHS from privatisation and restore it to Anuerin Bevan’s founding principles was launched yesterday by MPs from five parties.

Green MP Caroline Lucas presented an NHS reinstatement Bill backed by Labour, Lib Dem, SNP and Plaid Cymru politicians.

The Bill would re-establish the Health Secretary’s legal duty to deliver NHS services, which was scrapped in the Tories’ hated Health and Social Care Act.

Supporters believe that will reverse 25 years of “creeping privatisation” and ensure the NHS remains free at the point of delivery.

Ms Lucas said: “The public service we love is being dismantled and defined by bidding wars and market structures that waste billions which could be spent on patient care.

“Our public health service should be run with patients, not profit, at its heart.”

Ms Lucas pressed the issue at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, asking Tory PM David Cameron why £10 billion a year in taxpayers’ cash is wasted on contracting out services rather than providing care.

Mr Cameron has insisted that the government is not privatising the NHS.

But he let the mask slip yesterday as he told Ms Lucas she was “completely wrong” to suggest “there is only one way to deliver health care.”

He spoke as people from across Britain, many involved in campaigns against hospital closures, staged a show of support for the Bill outside Parliament.

Pensioner Joanne Sanderson (pictured), who last year completed all 300 miles of a march to save the NHS, was among them.

“We keep being told they’re not selling it off and people think they won’t or can’t privatise the NHS,” said Ms Sanderson, who had stitched an “our NHS” sign for the protest.

“But just wait, in five years time there’ll be nothing left if they keep going as they are, so we’ve got to keep protesting.”

The demonstration was called by Keep Our NHS Public, whose chair Dr Sue Richards warned: “If there is a majority Conservative government, the NHS will be finished.”

The Bill is the latest protest against Tory privatisation and there is not enough time before the election for it to be made law.

But Ms Richards said it provides the basis for a new law if a Labour government is elected.