I REFERRED to the first public meeting of the Wyre Forest Primary Care Trust Patient Forum in my Viewpoint last week.

It was disappointing that few members of the public were there but not surprising as the importance of this group of enthusiastic citizens is not widely understood.

PCT Forums are independent from health service management and are empowered to inspect all health service premises and to monitor the functions of all local NHS trusts. They have the power to pass on to trust managers the wishes and needs of local people regarding health care provision and can refer controversial plans to the county's Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee which in its turn can refer matters to other bodies including the NHS Independent Reconfiguration Panel.

If these arrangements had existed at the time of our hospital's downgrading the authoritative Health Service Journal wrote that the changes here would almost certainly have been different! The forum is considering its first programme of work and how to involve members of the wider public.

LAST Friday was "Back to School Day" for MPs organised by Oxfam to raise awareness that millions of children across the world receive no education.

I went to Birchen Coppice Middle School where I watched a brilliant demonstration of break dancing by around 40 of the more senior pupils led by an agile, energetic teacher. This was an inspiring demonstration of acrobatic dance skills that no other form of exercise can produce without equipment.

This is one way in which this successful school is finding and fostering hidden talents with resulting improvement in other aspects of school life and work.

After that pupils told me what education meant for them and I left promising to ask the Government how it is going to support the aim of satisfactory education for children worldwide by 2015.

AT Wribbenhall Middle School pupils spoke on why education matters to them and then in groups worked on lists of needs and priorities for obtaining worldwide provision of education and promised to forward to me a specific question for the Government.

Then at St Barnabas First School the head teacher led a debate on the subject "that every child should have the chance of quality education". I was fascinated that young children should pick on the words "every" and "chance" - so appropriate for developing countries before "quality" which is more relevant here.

With other MPs I attended the launch of the business plan and strategy document of Music West Midlands Limited, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to become the lead agency for the business of music of all types across the West Midlands.

It was good to see Kim Tanser of MAS Records and Kidderminster College among the founding board members as music is such value to all of us and a vital part of the West Midlands economy.