UNDER-fire health secretary Patricia Hewitt should get back to Australia, according to outspoken Tory MP James Gray.

The North Wiltshire MP was speaking on the eve of a Westminster debate in which he will warn that the NHS in North Wiltshire is in melt-down.

Mr Gray has condemned Ms Hewitt for claiming that the NHS had enjoyed its best year ever.

He said a cabinet minister had not been so out of touch since Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan returned from a foreign trip in 1979.

Mr Gray said: "It was just disgraceful. Not since Callaghan said "crisis, what crisis?" have we had such complacency. Hospitals are closing all over the place.

"It's ridiculous and just shows Patricia Hewitt knows nothing about the health service. Get back to Australia where she came, in my view."

He made his comments on Anzac Day the celebration of Australian and New Zealand servicemen.

Ms Hewitt, who endured boos and heckles during a speech to Unison members on Monday, was born in Canberra, Australia, in 1948.

The daughter of Sir Lenox Hewitt, an Australian civil servant and chairman of its national airline Quantas, she was educated in Australia and Newnham College, Cambridge.

It is not the first time Mr Gray has made controversial comments.

He last year resigned from his job of Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland after only a week in the post.

He had provoked outrage north of the border by suggesting that the 59 Scottish MPs should sit in Scotland for two days a week and then take part in Westminster debates during the rest of the week.

Mr Gray also sparked controversy in 2003 when he accused the Prime Minister of lying about the future of RAF Lyneham.

Mr Gray will today use a debate in Westminster Hall the second Commons debating chamber to claim almost every major aspect of health care is in crisis in his constituency.

He will lambast a plan by Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust and West Wiltshire PCT to close a minimum of five out of seven community hospitals.

The MP will also attack Kennet and North Wiltshire's management for running up an £18m deficit on top of an inherited debt of £28m.

He added: "We have also had the resignation of the chairman of the newly amalgamated ambulance trust who fears there will be deep cuts.

"Dentistry is in crisis: You can barely find an NHS dentist in my constituency.

"Two or three GP surgeries in my constituency have also closed. Health services are in a grave crisis indeed."

Labour yesterday branded Mr Gray's comments nasty and xenophobic and demanded he apologise to Australians living in the UK.

South Swindon Labour MP Anne Snelgrove said: "Once again James Gray has engaged his mouth before his brain.

"We have had record investment in the NHS in Swindon and we have a three-star-rated Primary Care Trust.

"If Patricia Hewitt goes back to Australia then we will be the poorer for it."

Sources close to Ms Hewitt added: "It's an insult to every Australian in Briton and to all the Australians who make such a huge contribution to our country."