REGARDING the Minor Injuries Unit at Pershore Cottage Hospital.

On this occasion I have sympathy with the Primary Care Trust in as much as they have got a large number of long term sickness vacancies which they have struggled to fill, even paying Locum Agencies up to£40 per hour for nurse time! In addition, there are also two vacancies which have been advertised several times and suitable applicants have not been forthcoming to fill these positions.

As a group of GPs, with the hospital running almost at full capacity of the serious inadequacies in bed numbers with the new hospital in Worcester, the first priority has got to be for the clinical care of the in-patients. Staff are, occasionally, working 12 hour shifts to maintain this and we are happy that standards have not been compromised in any way.

We are clearly committed to the services provided by the community hospital and any attempt by any organisation to reduce or close these would be met by a very violent reaction from the Doctors in the area and we would lose no time whatsoever in contacting yourselves in the Press to highlight problems should they occur.

DR GLENN RALPHS, Abbottswood Medical Centre, Defford Road, Pershore.