A petition against the 'privatisation' of the NHS was presented to a Norfolk MP on Friday.

Local campaigners met with health minister and North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb to hand over a national petition signed by more than 240,000 people as part of the 38 Degrees campaign.

The petition opposes the government's section 75 plans to allow GP commissioners to open up every part of local health services to private companies.

However, Mr Lamb said the coalition government had listened to concerns by agreeing to withdrawing and rewriting section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act.

The 38 Degrees group is now calling on Mr Lamb to make sure that any new regulations honour the promises that ministers made to the public when the act went through Parliament last year.

Ed Bober, of Norfolk Coalition Against the Cuts, said: 'There's such overwhelming support amongst the public for a publically owned health service.'

Liz Cornwall, of North Walsham, added: 'I was born a year before the NHS. I saw it grow and I don't want to see it disbanded now. The public health service is not a business.'