An aspiring Bradford doctor met Secretary of State for Health Alan Milburn as he visited Shipley, to ask for help in completing his medical studies.

Mohammed Baig, 23, from Bradford told the minister of how his medicine course had been terminated just weeks before he was due to sit his final exams at Nottingham University.

Labour candidate, Chris Leslie, who had invited Mr Milburn to visit the state-of-the art medical Windhill Green Medical Centre in Thackley Old Road, Shipley, pledged to look into the case.

Mr Baig, a former Bradford Grammar School student who has 10 GCSEs and three A-levels, all at grade A, said: "I have been trying to finish my course for 15 months. I should have graduated last summer.

"I want to be a doctor, I always wanted to do medicine and feel I should be allowed to complete my studies. If more doctors are needed, as the Government says, then why are universities not giving people like me the chance to qualify?

"My mother was ill last October and I had to take a week off to look after her. My consultant, who was in charge of the course, was not available and I got permission from someone else but when I got back I was told I had effectively failed the six month hospital attachment I was on."

Mr Baig said he appealed against the decision, but the appeals committee was made up of the same people who had made the decision to fail him.

Mr Leslie said: "We want to encourage as many medical students as possible to complete their studies. If there is a vacancy and a person wants to complete their studies they should be given every opportunity to do so."

As well as speaking with staff at the Medical Centre, which treats up to 20,000 people each year, Mr Milburn visited several treatment rooms.

He said: "I think this is a first rate centre. It is accessible for the whole community. What we need to do is increase investment in the National Health Service to ensure that we have more doctors and more facilities like this."

Mr Leslie said: "It is a rare opportunity to have a Secretary of State for Health visiting the front line of patient- doctor care, to see it at grass roots level.

"Windhill Green Medical Centre in the Shipley constituency is something I am very proud of. It covers a very diverse range of patients, everything is on one site and at the cutting edge of health care."