MID-WORCESTERSHIRE MP Peter Luff is to quiz Health Ministers about the shock resignation of hospitals' boss Harold Musgrove.

Mr Musgrove, chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, is to stand down in December, around 10 months earlier than expected.

Mr Luff wants to know if he has been placed under any pressure to go early.

The Conservative MP is to table a Parliamentary question asking why Mr Musgrove's contract is being terminated early.

Mr Luff wants the Department of Health to find a way of keeping him in post until the middle of next year, to oversee the opening of the new Worcester hospital and the re-structuring of local health services.

Primary Care Trusts are to be introduced next year giving more financial control to local doctors.

Harold Musgrove, quite rightly given the circumstances, is refusing to say why he is leaving early, said Mr Luff.

We can only speculate on what these reasons might be. It is possible he was not prepared to carry the can for any problems there

could be this winter in Worcestershire hospitals?

These problems such as bed blocking - would certainty not be of his making, the health authority's or the hospitals themselves.

But it is also possible that he shares my concerns about the radical restructuring of the local health service which is going to take place early next year? It's folly to be creating new primary care trusts which give so much more new powers to doctors at the same time as you are planning to open a new hospital.

I will be asking Health Ministers to do their best to ensure he remains in post until the middle of next year so he can oversee the transition and to make the case for extra finances.

Knowing Harold Musgrove as I do, I would be surprised if this was a decision he has reached entirely on his own. I wonder if he was under some kind of pressure from Ministers to go early?