HORRENDOUS bureaucracy is holding back key improvements at Kidderminster Hospital, a health campaigner told the Shadow Secretary of State for Health during his visit to the site.

Janie Thomas, of the Patient and Public Involvement Forum watchdog, said she was dismayed that two health centres at the hospital were next to each other but were not sharing doctor cover.

Her comments came as part of a question and answer session between shadow cabinet member, Andrew Lansley, and hospital staff and campaigners last week.

The Primary Care Centre has doctors on site to see patients outside of GP surgery hours - while the MIU is next door but does not have doctor cover.

Mrs Thomas said: "The bureaucracy is horrendous - the fact that (the MIU) is next door to a doctor and can't say 'can you have a look at this person?'. It needs to be a single centre for urgent care."

The MIU, based with the PCC in the Treatment Centre at the hospital, can see emergencies like fractures and minor burns. The PCC provides GP cover outside normal surgery hours.

Mr Lansley told the Shuttle/Times and News: "It is perfectly possible to think in terms of growing (the MIU), having that medical back-up which means a progressively higher proportion of people can come here."

Matron at the MIU, Dawn Robins, said the unit was popular with Wyre Forest patients and 23,600 visits during 2004 showed that "people still vote with their feet towards the (Kidderminster) site".

The NHS could only do so much though and Mr Lansley said the Conservatives' key priority was to educate the public to look after their own health better, to reduce the burden on the service.

He said an "endless supply of chronic diseases" came from binge drinking, drugs, obesity and smoking.

He added that the party wanted to take "decision-making as close as we possibly can to patients" by giving more power to GPs.

Getting rid of targets and cutting back on bureaucracy to get more cash into services were the other key priorities, he told the meeting on Wednesday last week.

The Shuttle/Times & News reported in November how health chiefs were looking at having the PCC's doctors work in the MIU.