This is the full text of a hardhitting letter that Devizes MP Michael Ancram sent to health secretary Alan Milburn.

FURTHER to my letter of February 5 I am writing again in connection with Devizes Hospital in my constituency. When in December I saw Hazel Blears, Health Minister, after which I wrote to you, she was distinctly and openly encouraging about the new hospital which we were promised some 15 years ago.

You handed my letter down to Hazel to reply. She did not reiterate her encouragement but told me that if the Community Health Council referred the matter to you, you would consider it.

I am surprised and concerned by this change of attitude. We were promised a new Devizes hospital 15 years ago. More recently the resources (from the other local NHS sales in Devizes), the land and the positive determination to proceed all came together. The prospects looked very positive, including your junior minister's encouragement.

It has therefore come as a shock this week, following consultation by the primary care trust, to hear major speculation not only that Devizes will lose its much valued and important maternity unit but that the existing hospital will close without a genuine replacement.

Much of this speculation has been caused by disclosure of the financial implications to the trust of the £10 million deficit they inherited, a substantial proportion of which is attributable to errors of management in the Royal United Hospital, Bath, over the last decade or so.

You will understand the local anger and feelings of betrayal which current speculation has given rise to in Devizes. It is an anger which I totally share, and a sense of betrayal which I also share given the reassurances I have been given over the last 11 years I have been the local MP.

I am writing to you to ask you to save proper hospital provision in Devizes including the maternity unit. It is not good enough to pass the buck to the PCT when the financial problems which have given rise to this local health crisis were imposed upon them by your Government. What was effectively a firm commitment to proceed with the new hospital is now in doubt. The money is still there if the PCT is not forced to spend it to service inherited debt.

Devizes desperately needs a full community hospital of the sort which you have purported to favour. It would be a scandal if it fell victim to the financial infrastructures you have created and imposed. You gave such clear commitments to improving local health provision in the past that I find it incredible that you could preside over the ending of hospital provision in Devizes.

I urge you to engage directly in this issue of great concern. Devizes needs its hospital, its maternity and minor injuries unit, hopefully in modern new premises. I ask you to revisit this issue as a matter of urgency and to take whatever action is needed to save Devizes Hospital.

MICHAEL ANCRAM, QC, MP

House of Commons

London