It is completely unacceptable for Mayor Thornhill to claim credit for securing the future of Watford Hospital and to accuse Labour of “scaremongering” and “relentless personal attacks”.

There is one politician above all who deserves the credit for securing Watford hospital’s future and that is Claire Ward, former MP for Watford who campaigned for over a decade and finally persuaded the then Labour government to centralise major acute services at Watford.

READ MORE: No new hospital for south west Hertfordshire

If you don’t take my word for it, look at what the Conservative MP for Hemel said.

He was very clear when he angrily declared it was Labour’s Claire Ward who persuaded the government to choose Watford over Hemel.

When this decision was re-opened last year as a result of pressure from Mr Penning and others, Labour warned that our hospital was under threat but we were accused by the Mayor of ‘scaremongering’.

However the report of the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group shows that we were right.

The consequence of the original decision was the need to redevelop and modernise Watford hospital to increase its capacity and efficiency but as we now know the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government cancelled those plans in 2010.

Six years later, despite much talking, not a brick has been laid and the miss-named Health Campus is going ahead as a 700-unit housing estate but without any hospital building.

The Liberal Democrat’s culpability in failing to secure funding for the major modernisation is understandably a source of embarrassment to our Mayor.

The whole point of having an expensive Mayor in Watford is that she acts as an advocate for the town.

Why hasn’t she been leading a campaign for proper funding for our local NHS? Why isn’t she holding our MP and now Conservative government to account for not creating a world class hospital in our town?

As winter approaches, Watford hospital faces a “perfect storm” of pressures.

Last year the Care Quality Commission declared our hospital to be ‘inadequate’ and put it into special measures.

Papers for last week’s West Herts Hospitals Board meeting reveal that Accident and Emergency waiting times of over four hours have worsened to 85 per cent of cases (against a standard of 95 per cent).

Staff turnover has risen to almost 16 per cent a year, leading to crippling agency costs.

The deficit is rising to a projected £24.4 million and the board has asked the government for a £42.2 million bailout with emergency funding of £8 million just to pay the staff. The hospital is near breaking point.

None of this is the fault of the staff who continue to work long hours to maintain services.

The fault lies firmly with the government who are massively underfunding the NHS.

But do you hear this from our Liberal Democrat Mayor?

No, instead she blames Labour, confusing criticism for personal attacks.

With no Conservative councillors left in Watford, Labour is the remaining bastion of opposition and free speech and we will continue to hold the Mayor to account.

This is not a personal attack. It is a demand that our Mayor and our MP do the jobs we pay them to do properly and stand up for our town and secure the funding to relieve the pressure on NHS staff and provide a world class hospital for the people of west Hertfordshire.

Mike Jackson, Chairman of Watford Labour Party