General Election candidates for the Copeland constituency were grilled by the public at a hustings event in Keswick.

Trudy Harrison, Conservative candidate and standing MP, Gillian Troughton, of the Labour Party, Liberal Democrat Rebecca Hanson and Ukip's Herbie Crossman answered questions on health, environment and flooding at the event at St John's Church, Keswick, this evening.

Candidates were asked how they will ensure that services are retained at the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven.

Mrs Harrison said: "One of my main pledges during the Copeland by-election was to support the West Cumberland Hospital. When I met with the chief executive of the trust he said that being in special measures made it challenging to recruit staff.

"Now the trust is out of special measures and a recruitment and retention campaign has started.

"This Government is committed to an extra £8 billion for the NHS and £1 billion for mental health services."

Mrs Troughton said she had campaigned for the NHS all her life.

She said: "I used to be a doctor and I volunteer with St John Ambulance.

"The reason why the NHS is political is because it's underfunded. I will always fight for funding.

"The one year retention of maternity services isn't good enough and that's why it's been referred to the Secretary of State."

Mr Crossman said he relied on the NHS to be alive because he had diabetes.

He added: "I would like and independent audit to be taken out, we need to know where the money has been wasted."

Mrs Hanson said: "We need to properly fund the NHS and the Lib Dems are the only ones facing up to the fact that we need to raise income tax to fund it. The Tories have grossly mismanaged our health services."