The services in Bridgwater, Frome, West Mendip, Chard, Shepton Mallet and Minehead community hospitals, and at Burnham-on-Sea War Memorial Hospital, are being closed for a day or part of the day.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust said 24% of its emergency nurse practitioners (ENP) roles were vacant due to a national shortage.

A spokesperson said: ‘Our efforts to recruit ENPs have not been successful in the past year, but we continue to look at how we can do that at the same time as training our own and looking at different ways of safely staffing our UTCs. In the meantime, we continue to look at how we can cover shifts on a temporary basis, but this is more difficult over the summer and in school holidays.

‘Some of the unscheduled closures also occur when seriously ill patients, who need treatment in an emergency department, come to a UTC instead. When this occurs, the UTC must close to stabilise the patient and ensure they are safely moved to an emergency department before it can reopen. This can delay the patient getting the life-saving treatment they need in an emergency department.'