HUNDREDS of people from Worcestershire travelled to London to protest against cuts to the NHS.

Around 350 people from the county travelled to the protest in four coaches on Saturday, marching under a county-wide banner of This is our NHS Worcestershire.

They joined tens of thousands of other protestors marching from Tavistock Place to Parliament Square.

The rally was organised by Health Campaigns Together, which is made up of 35 NHS campaign groups, trade unions and other political supporters.

Worcestershire supporters chanted: "March for the Royal. March for the Alexandra," in reference to the county's hospitals, the Alexandra in Redditch and the Worcestershire Royal in Worcester.

Support for the march was high, possibly due to concerns about deaths of patients on trollies at the Royal at Christmas and news that the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which is in special measures, had been given until next week to improve or face action from the Care Quality Commission.

Campaigners listed to speeches including one from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament Square Garden.

He told listeners the NHS was in crisis and urged them to fight for it, saying: "Defending the NHS is defending a basic human service and a basic right."

Among protestors at the march was Peter McNally, chair of Worcester Trades Council.

He said: "It's excellent to see so many people here.

"It is the best turnout for a number of years from Worcestershire.

"We are really pleased with that.

"It's a great atmosphere and people are determined to defend the NHS which is one of the great achievements of socialist ideas, providing for everybody when they need it.

"We want to see the end of private financing in the NHS, taking profiteering out of the NHS completely, scrap the private finance initiative, and we also want to see some democratic control of the NHS so that working people can run the system rather than the way it is now, run on the interests of profit and the interests of big business."

Stephen Brown of Wyre Forest Labour, went to the march.

He said: "What is happening to the NHS is totally unacceptable.

"We have seen what has happened in Worcester with the deaths on trollies.

"Without additional funding, proper management and an end to privatisation, things are not going to improve so that's why I'm here."

Kevin Greenway, from Bromsgrove, said campaigners would keep up the fight.

He said: "It is our NHS and we will not let it slip in to private hands."