Dr Hilary Jones left Good Morning Britain viewers “flabbergasted” following a discussion on pushing back the lifting of lockdown restrictions on June 21.

GMB’s resident medical expert clashed with host Richard Madeley during a discussion over ending lockdown.

Dr Hilary said: Let me ask you a simple question, why would we get out of lockdown when things are getting worse? Does that make any sense to anybody?"

Richard replied: "But are they getting worse?"

"But there are more hospitalisations," Dr Hilary said.

"We may not be seeing so many, we're not seeing the big peak in hospitalisations and deaths, but we're still having our NHS staff work extremely hard to keep hospitalisations down and keep people from dying. ICU units are pretty busy again and some experts are saying that we are already in a third wave.

"So my question is why would we ease restrictions now when things are getting worse when we've got a new variant which is causing huge problems in India but big problems here as well."

He added: "This continues for as long as it takes, really.

"We have to get things under control because we've got to think about all the staff working so hard in NHS hospitals across the country and many are suffering from burnout.

"Many are taking risks, wearing PPE for many, many hours in the day.

"Think about all the people suffering from cancer and can't get treatment. People with heart disease who can't get treatment.

"Until we get this under control, then we are going to have problems going forward."

Richard replied: "But Dr Hilary, it's going to be months and months until the entire country is vaccinated. So we stay like this until the autumn?"

The views of Dr Hilary caused quite a stir on social media with viewers flocking to have their say on what they had just heard.

"Absolutely flabbergasted listening to Dr Hilary this am, this programme needs a warning that you shouldn’t watch if feeling remotely fragile," one viewer wrote.

Another added: It's alright for these folks to be sat, getting paid, going back to there lovely homes. They will quite happily have it like this till 2051. June 21st its done. Live with it. Life is for living.”

While a third viewer said: I actually loose the will to live listening to Dr doom and gloom.”

Although some viewers agreed with his views with one saying: “Listen to the experts... extend the lockdown.”

“I think Dr Hilary Jones is spot on here. I'm afraid to say we are going to have to be cautious going forwards and restrictions will need to be in place for the foreseeable future,” added another.

Good Morning Britain airs Monday to Friday from 6am on ITV1.