ITt has been an exciting week in London and at home.The first meeting of the Health Select Committee was held and members asked Alan Milburn and Jacqui Smith questions relating to NHS expenditure.

To me, the most interesting thing was the Ministers' skilled method of presentation of information.

These presentations were lengthy and not necessarily wholly relevant to the question being asked but effectively limited the number of questions that could be asked.

Try as we might, we could not get Mr Milburn to admit there is an impending crisis in general practitioner services because of low morale and impending large-scale retirements.

A verbatim record of the meeting held in public was kept and will form the basis for a full report.

Secondly, I won the lottery of obtaining a ministerial question and was able to gain public recognition from the Floods Minister for the expertise existing in Bewdley Residents Flood Committee and also that he would look favourably upon an application for funding for a National Floods Defence Forum that this highly motivated and well informed group wish to set up for the benefit of flood-affected people across the country.

At home I was delighted to go to the opening of the Hurcott Pools Nature Reserve which will be a real asset to nature conservancy and to the local people.

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, paid a brief visit to Kidderminster because of the importance of the hospital to the constituents of the neighbouring iberal Democrat MP, Matthew Green, MP for Ludlow and South Shropshire.

Mr Kennedy was told clearly by a group of consultants and GPs how unsatisfactory the present arrangements in the Worcestershire hospitals really are.

It was pleasant to go to a reception in the Town Hall for visiting representatives from the twin town of Husum, Schleswig Holstein. I also joined Amnesty International for a brief part of their silent vigil against torture.

The weekend produced the news that Harold Musgrove has decided to step down as chairman of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust.

We hope for a new chairman with a different management style who will be easier to talk to about changes in health care that will benefit not only Wyre Forest but people throughout the whole county.

A meeting of MPs with threatened hospitals in other parts of the country with Professor Sir George Alberti, president of the Royal College of Physicians, was encouraging and emphasised the need for co-operation and consultation between us and local health service managers.