A WORCESTER GP has hit back at claims made by hospital chief Michael O'Riordan in his letter to the Evening News last month.

Dr Stuart King, of St John's House Surgery, St John's, attacked Mr O'Riordan's suggestion that hospital staff morale was low because of criticism from the Press and public.

In a letter to Mr O'Riordan, Dr King said there was a very different reason for the low morale.

"I have many friends, colleagues and patients who work in the hospital service and unanimously they tell me that their morale is low because they are unable to provide the standard of care to their patients that they know should be available in a modern health service," he said.

Little evidence

Dr King said there was little evidence that the extra Government money being ploughed into the NHS was producing any benefit.

"There are an increasing number of managers, co-ordinators and facilitators trying to improve the care provided, but fewer and fewer people at the frontline struggling to cope with grossly inadequate facilities," he said.

He also said senior managers imposed the new Worcestershire Royal Hospital upon the region, when everyone who knew anything about the health service realised it was inadequate.

"The plain truth is that the new hospital is too small," he said.

No prospect

He said he could see no prospect of any improvement in the region's health service until Mr O'Riordan was prepared to stand up and state that Worcestershire needed more hospital facilities.

A spokesman for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said Mr O'Riordan had received Dr King's letter, and would be replying to him directly in due course.