Protests against the Government's controversial health reforms took place across England yesterday, including in Burnley.

Candlelit vigils and demonstrations were being held, petitions organised and street stalls mounted in Reading, London, Cambridge, Norwich, Sunderland, Jarrow, Burnley, Manchester, Brighton, Leeds and Portsmouth.

Unison said the so-called NHS Big Weekend showed opposition to the reforms from health workers and members of the public.

Unison claimed the Government's recent "listening exercise" over its Health and Social Care Bill had not addressed "flaws" in the legislation.

Christina McAnea, Unison's head of health, said: "The public will not forgive Lib Dem MPs for colluding with the Tories to break up and privatise the NHS.

"People are rightly proud of an NHS that puts patient need before private profit, and voting through this Bill will be the end of the NHS as we know it.

"The Health and Social Care Bill is a massively expensive, completely unnecessary, waste of time and public money.

"Hospitals are already struggling to deliver on Government demands for £20 billion in so-called efficiency savings.

"The NHS is being pushed to breaking point with longer waiting lists, job cuts and treatment rationing.

"Money that should be going towards patient care will be poured into reorganisations and bureaucracy.

"This is the wrong Bill at the wrong time and it's time to kick it out."

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Claims that we aim to privatise the NHS amount to nothing more than ludicrous scaremongering.

"We have made it crystal clear, time and again, that we will never, ever, privatise the NHS.

"The reality is that we're giving more power and choice to patients over how they get treated, keeping waiting times low and cutting bureaucracy so more cash gets to the front line.

"We will not allow these lies to block the progress we want to achieve for patients."

The Bill will receive its third reading in the Commons next week.