Green Party candidate for Brighton Pavilion and MEP Caroline Lucas today added her support to the growing campaign to reinstate a nurse struck off after exposing “appalling” conditions and bad practices at a leading Brighton hospital.

Margaret Haywood, 58, was recently banned for life from practicing as a nurse after secretly filming patients being neglected by staff at Brighton's Royal Sussex Hospital for the BBC’s Panorama programme.

The controversial decision by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to strike the veteran nurse off has led to a wave of criticism from both the public and professional bodies – online petitions and Face Book pages calling for Haywood to be reinstated have attracted thousands of pledges of support.

The Panorama programme – chiefly based on Haywood’s covertly filmed evidence – revealed patients in severe pain from terminal cancer because drugs were not being administered properly, and others desperate to use the toilet being forced to wait because nurses failed to respond.

The investigation, entitled Undercover Nurse and broadcast in 2005, also exposed how an elderly patient was left lying in clothes he had soiled the night before.

Caroline Lucas today said: “The actions of this brave nurse should be commended, not punished.

“Margaret Haywood took a great personal risk in deciding to expose the disturbing conditions facing patients at the Royal Sussex Hospital – if it were not for her evidence the unacceptable practices she revealed could have continued unabated.”

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust, which runs the hospital, launched an inquiry following the expose; Peter Coles, the chief executive of the Trust later admitted to the BBC that he was "angry" and "ashamed" at the images and apologised to patients and relatives for lapses in quality of care.

Caroline Lucas added: “This episode not only highlighted a failure by individual staff to adequately look after patients, it highlighted a wider failure in the healthcare system under Labour.”

The Green Party has repeatedly warned that quality and consistency of care at many hospitals has been gradually eroded under the current Government.

“We’ve seen increasing cuts, a lack of targeted investment and a continued programme of privatisation in the health sector that ultimately impacts patient care and limits choices,” she continued.