What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A Tory election candidate mocked Labour as "deluded" and "hysterical" for warning about the NHS's future - in a seat whose local hospital is being downgraded.

Joy Morrissey accused the party of "fetishising" the service and said people should stop calling it "our NHS" or "treating it like a religion" in a scathing blog last year.

She wrote in January 2016: "The institution remains remarkably unchanged - the promised armageddon again failing to materialise.

"The credibility of these increasingly hysterical forecasts of doom can surely be no more than that of the deluded old soul wandering Oxford Street with his "The End Is Nigh' placard.

"The only one left for them now a NASA-style 10 second countdown."

Her local Ealing Hospital is being downgraded from a district to a local hospital as part of national cost-cutting 'Sustainability and Transformation Plans' (STPs).

(Image: PA)

The plan is set to cut the number of beds from 288 to 50 and leaves questions over the future shape of Ealing's A&E as part of a reduction from nine to five acute hospitals in north west London.

The STP report says Ealing's current setup is "not financially sustainable" after it ran up a deficit of £30million.

And it does not rule out an A&E downgrade, saying only: "No substantive changes to A&Es in Ealing will be made until there is sufficient alternative capacity out of hospital or in acute hospitals."

The plan was formally published after Ms Morrissey's blog post last year, but campaigners said fears over Ealing Hospital had been known for some time. It has already had its paediatric and maternity wards closed with services moved elsewhere in north west London.

Ms Morrissey's Labour rival Rupa Huq said: "This confirms what we already know - The Tories won’t protect Ealing [Hospital] because their candidate looks at our NHS with derision.

"She should apologise for these offensive remarks."

(Image: Getty)

The hospital provides for thousands of people in the warring candidates' Ealing Central and Acton constituency, one of the most marginal seats in the country. It sits just outside the seat's boundary.

Ms Huq is defending a majority of just 274 and the Greens and UKIP have pulled out to give each side a boost.

Ms Morrissey wrote her blog post on the Conservative Way Forward website in January 2016 with a photo of her outside Ealing Hospital.

In it she complained the Tories could "guarantee every patient the gift of eternal life and send them home with a complimentary pot of caviar and it still wouldn't be enough".

She added: "Stop treating a valuable public service like a religion that can only be spoken of in a hushed tone of reverence rarely heard outside of the Vatican.

"We can begin by desisting from the glutinous and now obligatory practice of referring to 'Our' NHS.

"For every member of the public that has bought into Labour's fetishisation of this institution there is an equally large and silent number that haven't.

"They do not gaze at the NHS with uncritical awe - and neither should we."

Ms Morrissey became embroiled in a row over the NHS plans last week with Ms Huq.

She pulled out of a hustings and threatened legal action against her Labour rival, accusing the campaign of "blatant lies" over a leaflet that said the hospital was closing.

A spokeswoman for London North West Healthcare NHS Trust said: "There will be some changes at Ealing Hospital over the next three to five years, to provide local people with the services they use the most, so patients receive the best possible care. This will include a local A&E at Ealing Hospital.”

Ms Morrissey has been contacted for comment by the Mirror, but had not replied at the time of publication.