Junior doctors protest: Vanessa Redgrave and Dame Vivienne Westwood join junior doctors at 'masked march' on Downing Street

Rally: Junior doctors and their supporters protest outside Downing Street on Saturday
Dominic Lipinski/PA
Tom Marshall6 February 2016

Vanessa Redgrave paid a personal tribute to NHS staff who saved her life after a heart attack and cared for her dying father as she backed junior doctors at a rally in central London.

The actress, 79, and Dame Vivienne Westwood joined thousands of junior doctors and their supporters for a "masked march" protest over pay and conditions.

They marched to Downing Street ahead of a 24-hour walkout due to begin on Wednesday, when junior doctors across the country will provide emergency care only from 8am.

Mrs Redgrave had to be rushed to hospital after suffering a heart attack while she was alone in her flat in Chiswick, west London.

Tribute: Vanessa Redgrave addresses the rally
Dominic Lipinski/PA

Addressing the crowds, she said: "My life was saved at the end of April last year by NHS consultants, NHS junior doctors and nurses in Hammersmith Hospital, thank you."

She said NHS doctors and nurses had provided her family with care and compassion in hospital, but they were being overstretched and under-resourced.

And she told the crowd that her father, the great actor Sir Michael Redgrave who died in 1985 after suffering from Parkinson's disease for 12 years, had his care undermined by Margaret Thatcher's government.

She said: "My father died aged 70 in 1985. The hospital doctors told me and my brother that they'd got rid of the trouble he was in hospital for - Parkinson's disease had blocked his bowels.

"But they said next time it gets blocked don't bring him back, we haven't got enough beds.

Masked march: Protesters fill Downing Street

"That was Mrs Thatcher's government, and my father was just one of the fathers."

Recalling her brother's care, she added: "My brother had a cardiac arrest in 2005, that meant short term memory loss. That meant that he could read, he was still a wonderful person, but he couldn't act anymore."

She said he needed support for his mental health, but this is "at the bottom of the rung of the whole system which this Government leads".

Dame Vivienne Westwood: 'You are fighting to protect the National Health Service'
Dominic Lipinski/PA

Mrs Redgrave added: "He was given some help freely, under the counter as it were, by an NHS consultant who kept his spirits up because the NHS psychiatric consultant knew what Corin needed.

"But my brother didn't get everything he needed. He did get 10 weeks and that was all that was allowed.

"She was great, but she could only give 10 weeks and she was in such a rush with the workload she'd got she could hardly speak a straight sentence.

"I thank her for what she put in for my brother, but I know what overwork means, as you do."

Thousands of demonstrators gathered at the rally.

It was the third time junior doctors have taken to the streets in protest at the proposals put forward by the Government, which says it is aiming to improve care over weekends.

Talks between the British Medical Association and the Department of Health reached an impasse over weekend pay rates despite the Government claiming it had made a "significant offer".

Dame Vivienne Westwood told the crowd: "Junior doctors are the future and you will win. You are fighting to protect the National Health Service, the NHS. To protect it from Government cuts.

"We need more doctors not less doctors. Doctors who get enough sleep so they can give their best care to patients."

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

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