WE have had great encouragement this week from the Health Service Journal.

The Government is about to publish a framework document on hospital reconfigurations and the Journal describes this in its leading article as a tribute to the "Kidderminster effect". The document calls for reconfigurations to be based on 'socially sustainable decision-making' and for services designed 'with local populations, not for them'.

Thus we have achieved recognition of the need to act on the views of people regarding hospital reconfigurations in the future in the rest of the country.

This document amounts to a tacit admission that what has happened in Wyre Forest is wrong but the Government is unlikely to make a U-turn here. However, with the devolution of power to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) we are in the hands of our own Wyre Forest PCT.

The non-executive directors of this trust are the people with the power to achieve the developments of services at Kidderminster Hospital that are so essential to restore fairness and access and to improve hospital services throughout the whole of the county.

By good fortune, I had an adjournment debate on Tuesday on public involvement in decision-making within the NHS. I was pleased that John Hutton MP, No 2 in the Department of Health, was the Minister chosen to respond.

I outlined the local derisory consultation process in 1998 as a perfect demonstration of how not to involve the public. I then welcomed the Government's plans for PCT Patient Forums that will replace Community Health Councils with a consistent vehicle for patient involvement across the whole NHS.

I commented on the potential power of non-executive directors of PCTs and expressed the hope that they would now be allowed to act as representatives of people in their area.

These directors have never yet been regarded as actually representing people.

Finally I outlined some of the major issues including hospital reconfigurations with which meaningful public involvement will be essential.

Mr Hutton's response confirmed the Government's intention to involve the public in NHS decision-making and gives a very good base line on which to monitor progress in the future.

I had communications from the National Consumer Council, the Terence Higgins Trust and the British Medical Association before this debate and there has been interest from the BBC programme You and Yours.

There has been debate about the control of fireworks and their noise levels and the possible licensing of displays. Hopefully legislation will come from this that will satisfy the concerns of parents and animal owners without removing the fun element for so many people.

Those at the enjoyable Valentines'Concert in the Town Hall last Saturday had their own firework display during a dazzling performance of a Liszt Hungarian Dance by visiting concert pianist Jonathan French who showed his versatility by accompanying sympathetically the delightful soprano Keira Lyness.