Student nurses are having to rely on food banks to get through their courses, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham was told today as he joined the Rochester and Strood by-election campaign.

Robert Pitt, student nurse representative at Medway Maritime Hospital, asked Mr Burnham to consider some kind of living wage for trainee nurses who were finding it increasingly difficult to meet costs.

He said a recent union survey had indicated that about one in five had at some point used food banks as they went through their courses.

Mr Burnham, who was addressing an audience of activists and others at Chatham's Sun Pier, said he would "take away the idea" but could not make any firm commitment.

"The NHS is under intense pressure, people are struggling to get GP appointments - people are looking for answers and Labour is the party that will provide them" - Andy Burnham

The issue cropped up as Labour sought to underline its reputation as the defender of the NHS in a by-election in which health has been shown in one survey to be the voters' top priority.

The shadow health secretary said he was not convinced the inspection regime that has led to Medway Maritime Hospital being placed in special measures was right. "No hospital is going to be made better by the big stick approach."

Mr Burnham said six-figure payouts to executive managers "for no benefit" under recent reorganisations were "criminal", especially as many returned to work in the NHS.

Mr Burnham denied Labour support was in freefall after a new poll showed that their support had dipped to 16% - seven points down.

"The NHS is under intense pressure, people are struggling to get GP appointments - people are looking for answers and Labour is the party that will provide them."

The recent publication by the government of five-year plan for the health service - the NHS Forward View - identified a funding gap that would require a staggering £8bn needed to be invested by 2020.

Mr Burnham said: "We are committed to providing more investment; we have committed to providing an extra £2.5m a year by creating a mansion tax and other tax measures because it is essential that the NHS gets more money because if it doesn't it will go into crisis."

But he acknowledged there would be "work to be done to close that gap and I am under no illusion about the scale of the challenge."

He said Labour would bring social care into the NHS and provide more help for vulnerable people and patients at home, which was often cheaper.

He rejected the suggestion that allowing greater privatisation in was cost-effective.

"Competition in the market is not the answer. It adds to these problems the NHS is facing because it costs more money to run these tenders but it also means more fragmentation when the future demands integration."

A Labour government would repeal parts of the Health and Social Care Act that forced hospitals to put out to tender certain services they often did not want to, he added.