MORE help is at hand for people with complaints or queries about their treatment at Kidderminster Hospital.

A new "patient's champion" has been dealing with problems from food to parking, providing a concrete demonstration of "patient-centred services" which is a key theme of NHS week, running until tomorrow. new PALS officer Tammie Gowans at Kidderminster Hospital.

Tammie Gowans, 32, has taken up the newly-created post of a PALS - patient advice and liaison service - officer at both Worcestershire Royal Hospital and Kidderminster, although she will serve Wyre Forest exclusively by the end of the month.

Her job is to supplement, not replace, the formal complaints procedure by providing face-to-face help to patients.

Mrs Gowans, who is originally from the United States, has access to all hospital departments and staff, right up to the chief executive.

And she takes pressure off people - such as nurses and consultants - who previously tried to do the same job.

She said: "If patients come in with a problem, we try to resolve it there and then. A lot of them are not aggressive - they just want somebody to talk to.

"Problems can range from simple parking issues to consultants' appointments, or food."

She added: "If it's a food issue, for example, I can go to the food manager, talk to him and find a solution, and then make sure the patient is happy with the solution I've given him."

Mrs Gowans says her job, and those of her two colleagues at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, will help transform hospital reputations.

"If a person leaves unhappy and he tells people how unhappy he is, the reputation of the hospital is already in tatters," she pointed out.

The trust's head of communications, Richards Haynes, said the scheme was already proving a hit.

"Feedback from people who've been helped by PALS officers is showing it is already making a big difference.

"And staff have welcomed it. Very often they would get a query from a patient and they didn't want to ignore it but either they didn't know where to go or they were caught up with clinical duties."