The Christmas season is already upon us. We have had the marvellous annual First Schools' Carol Concerts and the Chairman of the Council's Advent Carol Service this year at Chaddesley Corbett. 
Father Christmas attended the hospital Open Day and the switchings on of Christmas lights.

The hospital Open Day was well attended with stalls, raffles and tombolas in aid of local charities and tours of the Treatment Centre including theatres, X-Ray and maternity departments.
I attended the Hospital League of Friends Volunteers' Christmas lunch. Again this year over 100 volunteers enjoyed a buffet lunch, with a report from David Wase, Chairman, and a comment from me about excitements in Parliament and local NHS issues. It is good to know that all these volunteers and those from other charities are still working for our hospital and now that services are returning to Kidderminster, we know that extra money raised is being used to improve our own services.

Hopefully the fright we have all had about loss of further services from Kidderminster will not materialise as the Trust Chair and Chief Executive both realise that the prime function of our hospital Treatment Centre is to ease the load on services at the other hospitals in the County. The threat to the Cancer Resource Centre (the Millbrook Suite) is very unlikely to be supported as everyone realises that the worst time to travel is just after receiving chemotherapy. However we must continue to watch the situation as pressure for changes here could still come from other parts of the county.

Six of us from Health Concern enjoyed a stimulating training session with tutors from the Ambulance Trust in cardio pulmonary resuscitation and the new user friendly defibrillators that are gradually being placed in strategic situations in our area. The Community First Responder Scheme will give trained individuals possession of such a defibrillator and the duty and ability to rush to appropriate emergencies even before paramedics can get there. My own wish in being updated on resuscitation techniques was to make sure that if I happened to be locally, or in the House of Commons' at an emergency I would understand modern defibrillators which are so much safer and easier to use than those of only ten years ago.

There was no vote yesterday on the Second Reading of the Health Bill as there are good parts in it, for example closer control of dangerous drugs to avoid another Shipman disaster and mandatory codes of practice for prevention and management of hospital acquired infections. To my surprise resistance to the total smoking ban in enclosed public places which has been so successful and welcomed in Eire came from MPs rehearsing the libertarian argument which in my opinion cannot be sustained in the face of the huge health risk to others from passive smoking.

R.T.