Health Issues

Locally, improvements in our hospital services are beginning. 

It is vital that I am still in the position to keep the pressure on the local Trust managers and clinicians.

I will continue to press for: -

• increased inpatient surgery. 
  The people of Worcester and Redditch now recognise that their hospitals cannot cope with all the work thrown at them and are pressing for our hospital to do more of the work to relieve the pressure.

• re-instatement of the midwife-led birth centre first to provide postnatal care and then, when shown to be safe as are similar units in Suffolk and Cumbria, to recommence normal deliveries for fit mothers. 
  The necessary protocols for selection for admission and for dealing with the rare unexpected complication must be in place as they are at other birth centres.

• a doctor in Kidderminster Hospital's urgent care centre for 24 hours per day so that the range of emergency patients assessed and treated locally can be increased. 
  It is good that the merger of the minor injuries unit and the primary care centre means there is now a doctor in the unit out-of hours, but wholly unsatisfactory that there is still no doctor available during working hours.

• a pharmacy at the hospital to supply urgent prescriptions for outpatients and day cases and drugs for the increasing numbers of inpatients soon to be admitted.

• improved continuity of care and communication between staff and patients in all hospitals we use. 

Nationally, I will continue to support the ideals of the National Health Service. 

• I welcome the extra funding going into the NHS if it is aimed at improving the NHS rather than increasing the involvement of the private sector. 

• I shall watch for problems of affordability that are expected to arise from the wholesale use of the private finance initiative in building new hospitals. 

• I shall point out when NHS hospitals face financial difficulties due to the diversion of funds to the private sector under unfair terms. 

• I welcome the Government white paper on public health and will follow developments carefully to make sure the Government is translating words into action for sickness prevention.

• There have been more than twenty re-organisations of the NHS in the last twenty years. I will press for a period of stability and less interference with clinicians and managers so that they can concentrate on their job of caring for patients with emphasis on greater continuity of care and better communication with patients and families. Failings in these two aspects of care are the basis of most of the hospital complaints that I receive now.

• I welcome the Government's drive for better consultation with patients and the public on health service changes and the aim to keep the NHS local assisted by local authority health overview and scrutiny committees and the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. All these changes were brought about in response to the electoral revolt by the people of Wyre Forest in 2001. 
  I plan to continue to watch future hospital reconfigurations around the country none of which so far have been as severe or unfair as those that affected Kidderminster Hospital.

• With the surprising and illogical proposal to abolish the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, patient forums will lose their national support and voice. I have already raised this potential disaster in the House of Commons and will oppose any legislation necessary for the abolition.

It is vital that I am still in the position to maintain the pressure that will promote delivery of the improvements we want and need.

Promoted and printed by Malcolm Cooper on behalf of  Dr. Richard Taylor
of .Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern,
137, Franche Road, Kidderminster. DY11 5AP

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