WORCESTER'S MP says he is pushing for an urgent meeting with the health secretary to discuss the ongoing situation at Worcestershire Royal Hospital after reports two people died waiting for treatment in hospital corridors.

It is understood in one of the cases a female patient on an emergency trolley in a corridor in A&E suffered an aneurysm and later died in a resuscitation bay.

A second patient died after suffering a cardiac arrest on another A&E trolley within the department after waiting 35 hours for a ward bed elsewhere in the hospital.

A third death, reported to have been someone hanging themselves on a ward, also happened on another ward in the hospital.

All three deaths are understood to have happened between Saturday and midnight on Tuesday. During this period Minor Injury Units across the county were forced to close, so staff could be redeployed to support the struggling city hospital.

A Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust spokesman has told the Worcester News that although they don't comment on individual cases, with any "unexpected death" at the hospital there will be a "review and appropriate investigation".

Worcester MP Robin Walker has said he is "very concerned about the situation" and is seeking an urgent meeting with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

"I want to co-ordinate it with Karen Lumley (Redditch's MP) and between the two of us, set something up," the MP said.

"We have an ageing population and the current situation shows more and more people genuinely need support from the hospital, so the system needs upgrading.

"The staff there are working incredibly hard.

"But the hospital was built in the 1990s to serve the population of the city.

"It is becoming clear it is to now serve the whole of the county. The structure needs to be there.

"We need the expansion to deal with it."

Concerns about patients waiting in corridors have been raised in the past.

In March 2015, the Care Quality Commission published a report which said inspectors observed that patients being cared for in corridors were left alone for periods of time, commenting that "regular observations to monitor whether their condition was deteriorating were not carried out".

Peter Pinfield, chairman of patients' watchdog Healthwatch Worcestershire, said he is calling for a "thorough" review so that the relatives of those involved, and the wider public, called be reassured there was no link to capacity issues and the deaths of the patients in the corridors.

"Healthwatch has been making the point about capacity issue at Worcester for a long time," he said.

"I welcome the MPs meeting the Health Secretary - I hope he listens. We cannot carry on like this in Worcestershire."

A spokesman for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust said: "We had plans for the Christmas and new year period and those plans are to ensure patients are seen in order of clinical priority.

"We do accept people have been waiting longer than we would expect in A&E corridors, and we apologise for that.

"We welcome the support of local MPs. We meet with them regularly and are happy for them to meet the Secretary of State, to talk about the issues relating to the trust."