DENNIS SKINNER paid tribute to the NHS at the Labour Party conference today, saying it is the only reason he is still alive.

The 86-year-old Bolsover MP joked that he hopes to still be in Parliament for the next Labour government because he wants to “nationalise something every week.”

He recounted how he told a “Ukip man” in the Commons that he had been treated by a Malaysian surgeon, a Nigerian registrar, a Syrian cardiologist and Dutch doctor.

“I told the Ukip man, if you send all these people back from whence they came, half of London would be dead in six months,” the veteran leftwinger said.

He also recalled how NHS surgeons had saved his life with a heart bypass operation in 2003.

Mr Skinner said: “I’ll never forget that steady hand of the doctor that found a way from my groin straight into my heart.

“I watched every movement, I thought if ever he makes a slip then that’s the end. There’ll be no more speeches at the Labour Party conference,” he said, making the audience erupt with laughter. 

“But he did it, and the result was that I’m still here.”

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth announced at the conference that young people with cancer would have the cost of travelling to receive specialist care paid by a Labour government, and that “disgraceful” £35-a-week fees for hospital patients to watch television would be scrapped.

Mr Ashworth also condemned eight years of Tory austerity, saying it had led to staff shortages, creeping privatisation, growing waiting lists and a host of other ills.

“If a Jeremy Corbyn Labour government had been elected last year, austerity in our NHS would have ended, as we’d have invested £7.7 billion extra this year,” he added.