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Stephen Fry backs GP’s health bill petition

Stephen Fry has become the latest high profile opponent to the health bill, after he urged his 3.8m Twitter followers to sign a leading GP's petition to have the bill scrapped.

Writing on the social networking site, Mr Fry said that the coalition's health bill ‘risks destroying the NHS'. He urged his 3.8 million followers to ‘help stop it' by signing the ‘drop the bill' e-petition launched by Dr Kailash Chand, a GP and chair of NHS Tameside and Glossop, in November.

Mr Fry wrote: ‘Coalition health bill risks destroying NHS. Pls help stop it: sign this epetition.'

Dr Chand is appealing for 100,000 signatures to force a ‘Drop the Bill' debate in parliament. At time of writing 37,921 people had signed the petition.

The petition formally closes in May, but Dr Chand said he was aiming to collect signatures by the first week of March in order to be able to intervene in the health bill's progression through Parliament.

‘It's looking good,' he said, adding that the primary aim of the campaign was to ‘raise awareness.'

Mr Fry's intervention comes weeks after England and Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand urged his 1.8m strong Twitter following to stop ‘the NHS being privatised' by signing the petition.