Tony Blair today angrily accused the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, of exploiting the pain of Margaret Dixon in order to denigrate the NHS.
Speaking at Scottish Labour party conference, the prime minister told delegates he felt "real anger" over the Tories' championing of Mrs Dixon, the 69-year-old whose shoulder operation has been repeatedly cancelled, and asked them to remember "the NHS we inherited in 1997 when Mr Howard left office".
"To say our NHS today is worse than it was in those Tory years, to see Michael Howard - who sat for 10 years in that cabinet as they cut it, starved it of resources, sneered at its values - to see him take the case of someone in pain and use it to run down and denigrate the whole of our NHS, should make any decent, right-thinking person turn away in disgust," he said.
Mr Blair's comments come after Mr Howard defended his use of the Dixon case in a speech in Birmingham. The Tory leader argued that her situation was illustrative of the need for greater accountability in the NHS.
He denied he was exploiting the pensioner's suffering for political advantage, and repeated his claim that her operation had been cancelled a total of seven times.
North Cheshire NHS hospitals trust, which runs Warrington general hospital, at which the operation was to have taken place, denied the figure. It says the surgery was postponed only three times because "lifesaving operations must be, and are, our first priority".
Mrs Dixon is in need of a complex surgical procedure on her shoulder and, due to an unrelated heart condition, she will require a post-operative bed in the hospital's four-bed high dependency unit.
"I cannot think of a better example where accountability in the health service has failed than in the case which I raised in parliament this week - the case of Margaret Dixon," Mr Howard said.
"She and her family, like everyone else, have paid their taxes and were promised by Mr Blair's government a better, more responsive NHS. This is what Mr Blair's NHS has done for Mrs Dixon - she is in constant pain and desperately needs an operation."
He added: "When I raised this case in parliament, I was accused of playing party politics. What is parliament for if it is not to be a means to make ministers accountable for the services for which they are responsible?"
Mr Howard's championing of Mrs Dixon at prime minister's question time on Wednesday unleashed the fiercest period of pre-election skirmishing so far - nicknamed the "Battle of Margaret's Shoulder" - and the health secretary, John Reid, was yesterday forced to visit Warrington general.
However, Dr Reid refused to meet requests by both Mrs Dixon - ensconced in her home with two members of the Conservative media team - and the Conservatives that he visit her herself, saying he would not be dragged any further into a Tory "publicity stunt".
The day ended with Mr Howard writing to the health secretary, accusing him of lying about the Tories' health plans and demanding he withdraw the allegation that the Tories want to "introduce a system ... that would charge us all for our operations".
Today, Dr Reid denied that he had misrepresented Tory health policy, and called on the Conservative leader to acknowledge "the great work that being done by our NHS for the sake of the people of this country".
"I hope he gives that as much prominence as he does every individual case that goes wrong," he added.
