A Tory MP has claimed NHS over-crowding could be solved by doctors using astrology to treat patients.

David Tredinnick said consulting the stars would "take huge pressure off doctors" and predicts astrology will "have a role to play in healthcare."

The MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire also admitted he had prepared astrological charts for fellow MPs.

In an interview with this month's Astrological Journal, the controversial MP said: "There would be a huge row over resources.

"However, I do believe that astrology and complementary medicine would help take the huge pressure off doctors.

"Ninety per cent of pregnant French women use homeopathy.

"Astrology is a useful diagnostic tool enabling us to see strengths and weaknesses via the birth chart.

"And, yes, I have helped fellow MPs. I do foresee that one day astrology will have a role to play in healthcare."

He added that opponents to astrology were "bullies", saying: "Astrology offers self-understanding to people.

"People who oppose what I say are usually bullies who have never studied astrology.

"They never look at it. They are absolutely dismissive. Astrology may not be capable of passing double-blind tests but it is based on thousands of years of observation.

"Hippocrates said, 'A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician,'

"Astrology was until modern times part of the tradition of medicine. I think it is a great pity that so many scientists today are dismissive of right-side brain energy, such as intuition.

"People such as Professor Brian Cox, who called astrology 'rubbish' have simply not studied the subject.

"The BBC is quite dismissive of astrology and seeks to promote the science perspective and seems always keen to broadcast criticisms of astrology."

Bizarrely, Tredinnick, 65, who is chairman of the All-Party Group for Integrated Healthcare, went on to say people who opposed astrology were "racist".

He said: "The opposition (to astrology) is based on what I call the SIP formula - superstition, ignorance, and prejudice.

"It tends to be based on superstition, with scientists reacting emotionally, which is always a great irony.

"They are also ignorant, because they never study the subject and just say that it is all to do with what appears in the newspapers, which it is not, and they are deeply prejudiced, and racially prejudiced, which is troubling."