So what now Mr Hunt? Stafford's County Hospital A&E pledge falls flat

Mr Hunt said it was his 'commitment to the people of Stafford' to bring back a full-time emergency department to the Weston Road site providing it was clinically safe, while on the pre-election campaign trail in the town.

But Mark Hackett, chief executive of University Hospitals North Midlands Trust, which runs the hospital, has now declared there are 'no plans' to return the A&E to 24 hours.

He has spoken out after emergency pressures at Royal Stoke, in the north of the county, were exposed again last week when a photograph of patients queued up in the hallway was leaked.

"I want to be clear that the pressures upon A&E at the Royal Stoke hospital come largely during the day," he said.

"Any suggestion that we could alleviate these pressures in Stoke during the day time hours by opening the A&E unit here in Stafford during the night time hours would simply be mistaken.

"We are always willing to look at ways of improving our services but to be clear on this matter the A&E unit here in Stafford ceased to be open 24-hours-a-day in 2011.

"The overnight closure took place well before we started to experience severe pressures at Stoke.

"The Trust has no plans to open the A&E at Stafford 24 hours a day."

However just as the Health Secretary stopped short of guaranteeing around the clock emergency service Mr Hackett stopped short of ruling the move out all together.

The UHNM chief said health commissioners would have to formally request extending the opening hours at County Hospital, ensure it would be safe to do it and commit 'substantial' funding.

In recent months Royal Stoke has consistently failed it's targets for A&E waiting times. The required standard is for 95 per cent of patients to be seen, admitted, treated or discharged within four hours but the hospital has been achieving less than 80 per cent since last year.

The site has also seen some patients wait longer than 12 hours to be dealt with.

Andrew Donald, chief officer of Cannock Chase and Stafford and Surrounds clinical commissioning groups, is the latest high profile figure to state that returning 24-hour service at Stafford will not solve everything.

"Patients waiting on trolleys for more than 12 hours is unacceptable," said Mr Donald.

"There are issues which need to be resolved at Stoke but to make a connection between the pressure there and the overnight closure at County Hospital is far too simplistic.

"The problem at Stoke is multi-faceted."

A spokesman from the Department of Health said both Mr Hunt and Mark Hackett were in agreement that returning 24-hour service to Stafford would only be done if it was safe.

He added that health minister Ben Gummer had written to Mr Hackett and would be meeting with him to discuss how to improve health services in the county.