MP Gideon Amos said this week he was ‘horrified’ to see for himself working conditions for staff in Musgrove Park Hospital’s maternity unit.

Mr Amos visited the hospital on Friday (August 2) after earlier in the week raising in Parliament the urgent need for improvements.

He said: “My first official meeting as MP in the constituency was with the chair and chief executive of the Somerset NHS Trust at Musgrove.

“We talked about the priority which needs to be given to social care and mental health, and the trust’s innovative work which is giving people positive mental health intervention earlier than elsewhere in the country.

“But, frankly, I am horrified by the conditions staff are working under in the maternity buildings.

“It is worse than even I thought.

“Thirty-degree heat is no condition in which to look after pregnant mums.

“The new hospital promised by the Conservatives was never real and the fall-back promise to renew the maternity unit still has not been honoured.

“That is why I raised it with the Chancellor face to face in the House of Commons last week.

“She has promised me a meeting with the Health Secretary, which I am following up.

“Along with care, dentists, and more GPs, we need to get our NHS back on its feet, and that is my number one priority.”

Mr Amos said he was concerned to see Labour was just as non-committal as the Conservatives previously on maternity unit improvements.

However, he said at least the Chancellor was not making the same unfunded promises on building 40 new hospitals.

Mr Amos said: “Our Lib Dem manifesto proposed taxing the big banks and energy companies to pay for the desperately needed maternity unit and to improve GP and dental services generally.

“That is what I will be putting to the Secretary of State when I meet him and that is the case I will be putting every day in Parliament.

“I was elected to champion Taunton and Wellington above anything else and I will keep working on the need for improvements at Musgrove Park Hospital until its future is secured.”