Alison Hammond has heart check-up in hospital after leaving TV's This Morning

She continued: "I had a little bit of a palpitation, and now I'm getting it all checked out. But I think I'm OK. I'm hoping it was just a little panic attack or something like that."

The Birmingham-born presenter, who also co-hosts The Great British Bake Off, thanked This Morning's viewers for sending her "lovely messages" while apologising for her dramatic early exit.

"I'm so sorry I left you," she added. "I would never normally do that. I would never leave a TV show, so you know I wasn't very well.

"But hopefully I'm going to be all right. The doctors are so lovely, and they're checking me out, and hopefully everything's going to be fine.

"Everything is fine, look. I'm rocking it. Look how good I look," she joked, noting how she was still wearing her make-up from the show.

Friday's edition of the ITV show began at 10:00 BST with Hammond and her regular co-host O'Leary at the helm, before she left at 11:30 during a segment about pets.

O'Leary, 53, addressed her absence when the show returned from a break, saying: "Welcome back to This Morning, Alison is feeling a little unwell, so she's just had to duck out. Hopefully she'll be back."

He later updated viewers that she would, in fact, not be returning, "so I'll be here for the rest of the show".

Broadcaster Hammond initially rose to fame as contestant on Channel 4 reality show Big Brother before appearing on I'm A Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing.

She became a co-host in This Morning in 2021, and was part of the team that won a National Television Award for best daytime programme the following year.

She also joined Bake Off in 2023 and took over from the late Paul O'Grady on For the Love of Dogs in 2024.