WYRE Forest MP Dr Richard Taylor has started his mission to expose "the truth" about the downgrading of Kidderminster Hospital.

Already buoyed by top consultants breaking their silence in support of restoring services to the hospital he has called on all health workers to talk to him.

As he signed on as Britain's only independent MP at the House of Commons yesterday he reiterated his belief he could cut through three-and-a-half years of spin and fog to reveal the true picture of healthcare in the region.

His message has not changed.

The hospital lost its inpatient services and blue light A&E for financial reasons and it was

necessary to return emergency services for common conditions such as heart attacks and appendicitis for the good of the healthcare of 135,000 people in the area.

But he realises it is a race against time as the gutting of the award-winning hospital to prepare for the controversial ambulatory care centre could start in the autumn.

He said: "I have to establish the truth because it is the truth we have never got at - this will involve talking to doctors, hospital staff and management.

"You can imagine health workers being accused of whistle-blowing if they go straight to the press but they have an automatic right to speak to their MP.

"Once I can expose the truth I cannot believe that as this country is basically a fair country there won't be a general realisation that the whole plan is a disaster for local people and we will get some services back.

"Surely the Government cannot disregard what has already been a literal revolt of the people."

Dr Taylor has already blasted a broadside from the heart of England to the seat of Government over healthcare.

But he knows he has to rally troops on the home front for the campaign ahead.

District doctors are high on his hitlist.

Its representative body Wyre Forest General Practitioners Association

sent shockwaves through the district when it stated last November it would be unsafe to return a blue-light A&E to Kidderminster.

However, Dr Taylor said their argument is outmoded due to similar hospitals keeping essential services in other parts of the country.

He said: "I think the doctors statement was very much a forced decision because they were told there was no alternative.

"Yet we now know what has been happening at places such as Kendal, Hexham, Bishop Auckland and Southport and Ormskirk, which the GPs would not have known about when they made their announcement.

"I maintain there is a groundswell of support from medics, both doctors and consultants, for our position.

"As we have always said, we expected changes at the hospital but they were the wrong changes!"

Dr Taylor is determined to quash the notion once and for all the changes were made for medical not financial reasons.

He said: "There were financial problems from the start because the health authority admitted to debts increasing at £7.5 million a year and an accumulated debt of £20 million was eventually written off. So to say finance didn't come into it is completely ridiculous.

"We asked them back in 1997 to deal with the clinical and financial problems separately but they refused to do so.

"Yet once the three trusts were merged, and the £20 million debt was written off, they found this miraculous £13.7 million for gutting E-Block and putting in an ambulatory care centre we do not need!

"We were told in by the regional postgraduate dean in June 1998 it only required two extra surgeons across the county to maintain three acute hospitals. Yet since the trusts were merged and Government money has been pumped in, they have found the money to appoint 12 extra consultants."

He concluded: "You cannot get away from the fact the downgrading of our hospital is both unique and unfair.

"No other hospital of similar size and location as Kidderminster has been decimated to such a degree.

"It is this basic injustice I am determined to expose and I urge all health workers to contact me in the coming weeks so we can get to the truth."