"STAGGERING" is the only way to describe the time children needing mental health, occupational and speech therapy in Worcestershire are waiting for hospital appointments.

Likewise, the number of children in the queue.

If you doubt that, look again at today's Front Page and ask yourself what it's like to lack the help you need to develop the basic skills that most of us are lucky enough to take for granted.

Then try disagreeing with mental health charity official Dinah Morley when she says that, if we were talking about cancer or heart problems, the nation would never put up with it.

Yesterday, Health Secretary Alan Milburn pledged to slash waiting times and ensure that, by 2003, 90 per cent of GPs see patients within 48 hours.

Among other things, he said that, by 2005, all patients should be able to book a convenient time and place for their treatment when they are referred to hospital by a GP.

Forgive us for being sceptical but, when you consider that the experts who'll set our queues moving won't start until spring, it's difficult not to be wary of his pledge.

"There's a huge shortage of staff nationally," Dinah Morley says of the problem affecting her branch of health.

So where will Mr Milburn's queue-busters come from?

We crave the day we can see Government sums adding up, just as we crave the opportunity to tell you that the needy children of Worcestershire are having their therapy when they need it.

Until then, we won't be reassured by jam tomorrow. And we suggest you aren't either.