LOCAL MP Gideon Amos has again called for a new maternity and paediatric unit for Musgrove Park Hospital to be built sooner than planned after a Ministerial promise made on Monday (April 20).

The Government currently has the new building scheduled in its funding programme for seven years’ time, in 2033 at the earliest.

On Monday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting promised: “If I can bring forward the timetables of these schemes … we will.”

A Westminster Hall debate on maternity care saw a call for the appointment of a ‘maternity commissioner’ to improve maternity services.

The debate was a result of a petition signed by nearly 154,000 people, including more than 230 in the Taunton and Wellington constituency.

Minister of Secondary Care Karin Smyth said: “All those women and their families deserve to know that their voices will be heard and that action will be taken.

“That is why the Government have launched their new maternity and neonatal taskforce, chaired by the Secretary of State.

“The challenge for this Government over the next couple of years is not just to build on the progress we are already making, but to accelerate it.

“I want women who signed the petition to know that we have heard them loud and clear.

“We know there is so much more that needs to be done, but I ask that they do not judge us on the strategies we publish or the people we appoint, we must be judged by our results.”

Mr Amos, who has been campaigning for the Musgrove work to be brought forward, said at present, water was coming through the ceilings of the hospital’s maternity building when it rained, while in summer the temperatures reached 30C.

He called on the Government to do everything it could to hasten its hospitals programme so maternity services, and the conditions in which women gave birth and staff worked could be improved as quickly as possible.

Mr Amos said: “The Government’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting came on to Radio Somerset and promised to bring forward hospital projects where he could so I am not going to let up until they have delivered on exactly that.

“Musgrove midwives are working in the toughest conditions as they try to improve care for mums and babies, but being roasted in summer and rained on in winter is no way to treat them or vulnerable patients.

“We have won major victories with a new NHS dental practice and new pharmacies in the constituency this year, but Musgrove deserves more support and care, and our NHS remains my number one priority.”

Musgrove improvements were put on hold by the Department for Health and Social Care in January of last year after it reviewed the previous Conservative Government’s new hospitals programme.

It branded the programme ‘behind schedule, unfunded, and therefore undeliverable’, which it said was forcing it to postpone many of the projects.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Musgrove, said at the time the delay was ‘bitterly disappointing’ for patients and staff alike.