ON October 6, a 17-page report was delivered to the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust, detailing a number of proposals that will address the £20 million deficit the trust is suffering.

These proposals include a number of ideas and plans - some good, some bad. But what will definitely happen is that Worcestershire will be getting cuts in health services - again!

Under the knife this time around will be the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch which may lose its A & E department, maternity, cancer surgery and critical care, all to - you've guessed it - Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

Kidderminster may well lose the birthing centre as the proposed cuts only allow for one birthing unit in North Worcestershire (and that may well go to the Alex), but, ironically, the treatment centre will probably see an increase in the number of elective treatment services delivered there as the proposals are seeking more effective use of under-utilised assets (which Kidderminster counts as).

In the last eight years, spending on the National Health Service has doubled - the Labour Government made much of its largesse with taxpayers' money during the election campaign - yet where on earth is the money going?

Not on frontline services - we are seeing cuts yet again. Nor, it would seem, on managers as the report identifies nearly £20 million of savings through improved management.

In 2001 Dr Richard Taylor was famously elected to parliament on the single issue of health cuts. Four years later, and just five months after a general election, this Government is cutting health services yet again.

It would be unfair of me to criticise Richard's achievement, but the fact is, 27,500 Wyre Forest voters have been completely ignored by this Government, whilst their money has been squandered. It seems that single issue politicians are ignored - even on their single issue!

During the election campaign, we Conservatives promised we would spend taxpayers' money wisely, that any cuts would come from bureaucracy, and that we would direct more money to frontline services, where it is needed.

Call me cynical, but the timing of these Worcestershire health cuts just after the election is unlikely to be a coincidence. Rest assured that I and my colleagues in Worcestershire will do our utmost to stop this outrage.

MARK GARNIER

Conservative Parliamentary spokesman for Wyre Forest,

Margaret Thatcher House

Mill Street, Kidderminster