Jeremy Corbyn has tweeted an inspirational image of Aneurin Bevan, with a famous quote about the NHS that has come to be seen as a rallying cry in support of Britain’s health service. The message reads: “The NHS will last as long as there’s folk with faith left to fight for it.”

The tweet on Wednesday echoes the speech Corbyn gave earlier in the week at the Royal College of Nursing, unveiling Labour promises to end the public sector pay cap for a an NHS workforce he described as “underpaid, overworked”.

The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it. Be in no doubt that there are those folk. I am one of them. pic.twitter.com/BxRryzUlKT — Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 17, 2017

There’s a hitch though. Bevan, known as Nye and who oversaw the creation of the NHS in 1948, did not actually say those words. They come from a 1997 television play about the life of the Welsh politician called Food for Ravens, and they were written by Trevor Griffiths.

The provenance of the quote did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of Corbyn’s social media followers for the strong message of support for the NHS.

@jeremycorbyn You tell them, Jezza, it was Labour who created the NHS, following Beveridge. 🎈🎈🎈 — pandypooch (@pandypooch2) May 17, 2017

@jeremycorbyn Thank you for being there for the many. Well done for standing strong against the tide and onslaught. The people are behind you. — Juliette Page (@Juliette_Page) May 17, 2017

@jeremycorbyn Under the Tories the NHS is in critical condition. Unless you #VoteLabour you're effectively choosing to switch off the life-support machine — Daniel Blake's Vest (@WarmongerHodges) May 17, 2017

Although the fictional quote has taken a hold on social media, plenty of Bevan’s real actions and quotes would be just as inspiring.

In 1948, on the day the NHS came into being, the then health minister visited the first ever NHS patient, 13-year-old Sylvia Diggory. She later recalled the meeting, saying: “Mr Bevan asked me if I understood the significance of the occasion and told me that it was a milestone in history – the most civilised step any country had ever taken.”

“The eyes of the world are turning to Great Britain,” he said on that day. “We now have the moral leadership of the world.”

The creation of the NHS had faced opposition, and months before the nation’s doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians, dentists and hospitals came together as one giant UK-wide organisation, the British Medical Association had been threatening to boycott it.

In a speech to parliament about the dispute, Bevan made the case for the NHS: “There is nothing that destroys the family budget of the professional worker more than heavy hospital bills and doctors’ bills.”

In 1951, Bevan resigned from the cabinet over the issue of charging for prescriptions and dental treatment. In his resignation letter, he provided another inspirational quote about the erosion of NHS services being free at the point of delivery: “It is the beginning of the destruction of those social services in which Labour has taken a special pride.”

Labour’s manifesto, published on Tuesday, promised an additional £37bn for the NHS in England over the five-year parliament. Other policies included the scrapping of hospital car-parking charges, setting a one-hour waiting time target for urgent A&E cases, and guaranteeing cancer patients would be seen within four weeks.

The manifesto describes the Labour creation of the NHS as “our proudest achievement, providing universal healthcare for all on the basis of need, free at the point of use”.