Labour's parliamentary candidate joined protesters outside Stoke Mandeville Hospital on Friday as porters, domestic staff and cooks demanded equal pay.

Khalil Ahmed, who is hoping to become Wycombe's next MP at the polls on Thursday, supported the staff members on Friday.

Porters, domestic staff and cooks have been outsourced to the management services company, Sodexo.

Sodexo reportedly employs workers on zero-hour contracts paying the minimum wage - just £8.21 an hour.

Their colleagues who are employed in-house on NHS contracts are thought to earn £9.02 for exactly the same job.

Campaigners brandished banners saying: "Support the Sodexo workers - same job same pay campaign".

Cllr Ahmed said minimum wage on a zero hours contract, with no guarantee of work is "inadequate" in Buckinghamshire - with the "added pressure of bringing up a family and paying Buckinghamshire rents".

He said: "I support Sodexo staff as they campaign for equal pay.

"The Conservative government has let down our hospital staff by allowing this to continue and the NHScuts website, launched on Friday, has made it clear- they will continue to privatise our most valuable asset, the NHS.

"Wycombe needs a healthcare system that works for the many, not the few. This creeping privatisation must be reversed and only a Labour government will do that.”

According to a new website called NHS Cuts, patients in Buckinghamshire will suffer an annual underfunding of £270,000,000 by 2023 because of Conservative cuts.

That is the equivalent of 2,200 GPs, 7,600 nurses, 150 GP surgeries or 240 MRI machines.

The website suggests the GP surgeries affected by cuts include Marlow Medical Group, Hawthornden Surgery in Bourne End, Hughenden Valley Surgery and The Simpson Centre in Beaconsfield.

Cllr Ahmed said he would "campaign tirelessly" to return Wycombe Hospital's A&E if he is elected.