LONG-AWAITED improvements to our hospital services are beginning. It is vital that I am still in the position to keep the pressure on local trust managers and clinicians.

will continue to press for:

Increased inpatient surgery. The people of Worcester and Redditch now recognise that their hospitals cannot cope with all the work thrown at them and are pressing for our hospital to do more work to relieve the pressure. We can expect hip and knee replacement surgery to return here later this year.

Re-instatement of the midwife-led birth centre first to provide postnatal care and then, when shown to be safe, as are similar units in Suffolk and Cumbria, to recommence normal deliveries for fit mothers. The necessary protocols for selection for admission and for dealing with the rare unexpected complication must be in place as they are at other birth centres.

A doctor in Kidderminster Hospital's urgent care centre for 24 hours per day so that the range of emergency patients assessed and treated locally can be increased to reduce the number of people going unnecessarily to Worcester. The merger of the minor injuries unit and the primary care centre means that we now have an urgent care centre with a doctor present out-of-hours. It is wholly unsatisfactory that there is still no doctor available during working hours.

A pharmacy at the hospital to help with urgent prescriptions for outpatients and day cases and for drugs for the increasing numbers of inpatients soon to be treated.

Improved continuity of care and ommunication between staff and patients in all hospitals we use.

Wider National Health Issues

will continue to support the ideals of the National Health Service.

I welcome the extra funding going into the NHS if it is aimed at improving the NHS rather than increasing the involvement of the private sector.

I welcome the Government white paper on public health and will follow developments carefully to make sure the Government are translating words into action for sickness prevention.

There have been more than 20 re-organisations of the NHS in the last 20 years. I will press for a period of stability and less interference with clinicians and managers so that they can concentrate on their job of caring for patients with emphasis on improving the quality of care.

I welcome the Government's drive for better consultation with patients and the public on health service changes and the aim expressed in their document, "Keeping the NHS Local - a New Direction of Travel" assisted by local authority health overview and scrutiny committees and the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. All these changes were brought about in response to the electoral revolt by the people of Wyre Forest in 2001.

I shall continue to support our Primary Care Trust Patient Forum. With the unexpected and illogical Government proposal to abolish the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, Forums will lose their national support and voice. I have already raised this potential disaster in the House of Commons and will oppose the legislation necessary to complete the abolition.