Charles Kennedy has rounded on his political rivals over the political storm about the treatment of Rose Addis.

The Liberal Democrat leader said the 94-year-old pensioner had become a political pawn and that instead of an intelligent debate about public services, voters were now watching a political slanging match between the two main parties.

"It is time both Labour and the Conservatives stopped using Mrs Addis as a political pawn," Kennedy said.

He accused the Conservative leader, who first raised the case of the pensioner at PMQs on Wednesday, of cheap point scoring.

"In exploiting an individual case of patient treatment, where the facts are unclear, to make a political point about the national health service, Iain Duncan Smith is doing the public a great disservice," Kennedy said.

Labour's response had been no better, he claimed.

"In their reaction to Mrs Addis' case, government officials have overreacted in apparently revealing confidential medical details in a way that most people would find unacceptable. The British people want a serious and passionate debate about the future of the national health service, not an unseemly slanging match."