LABOUR created the NHS, and is renewing it today with billions of pounds of new investment.

There are 500,000 more operations a year today than in 1997, 16,000 more nurses working in the NHS and nearly 5,000 more doctors.

After years of rising year on year, waiting lists for both inpatient and outpatient treatment are falling in our county.

If re-elected this work will go on. A Labour government will increase NHS spending by one third in real terms in the five years to 2004, training and employing thousands more doctors and nurses.

The Tories underfunded our NHS for a generation and left local services on their knees.

Their agenda for £20 billion tax cuts would take £25 million per year out of local services, and that doesn't add up without massive cuts to the NHS.

I care passionately about the NHS and no issue has dominated my time as an MP more than the future of Kidderminster Hospital.

There are those who wanted the hospital to stay as it was but this was not medically possible. Even Richard Taylor now admits he "would have been ridiculed" if he had argued against all change.

I want the very best health services for the people of this area, with the maximum amount provided locally.

We all want emergency services as close to home as possible but if the doctors say loudly and clearly that it is not medically safe to provide emergency services in a small hospital, with all the back-up of specialist doctors needed to deliver high quality care, we have to move on and seek the best deal possible.

Richard Taylor has spent three years telling people to complain about the loss of emergency services and only now has had the courage to admit that keeping a full A & E is not realistic.

It's not surprising so many people feel let down, and understand why virtually all our local doctors have refused to jump on his bandwagon.

Up to 90 per cent of people are still being treated at Kidderminster Hospital. We have £14 million of new money to buy state-of-the-art medical equipment and improve services.

If any more services can be delivered safely, as your local MP I will fight for them. But if the doctors say services cannot be delivered safely, I'll listen to the doctors; rather than campaigning for them for years and then having to admit they are not realistic after misleading the public.