VIEWPOINT FOR 15 MAY 2008
FROM DR RICHARD TAYLOR

The funeral of the highly respected, excellent MP for Crewe and Nantwich, Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody, took place last week. 
She was a sad loss to me personally as she has been an unfailing help with several matters and was my prime ally in a move to try to convince the government that some of their proposals for the re-organisation of general practice are misguided.
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At the funeral, which was attended by hundreds of MPs from all parties, we were reminded in the prayers that the God many of us believe in is loving, merciful and compassionate. I cannot believe that attempts to alleviate suffering are against His Will. 
For this reason I support the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, despite the ethical worries of some Christians. 
Much alarm has been raised about admixed embryos, saviour siblings and the use of embryonic tissue for medical research but examining the Bill there are rigorous safeguards to make sure that these procedures, when sanctioned, are strictly controlled and time limited. There is no possibility of the nightmare of human-animal hybrids becoming a reality. 
But the probability of discovering treatments for illnesses like Parkinson's Disease, Motor Neurone Disease and Alzheimer's Disease for example and helping families with tragic illnesses means to me that the Bill is necessary and justified.
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The latest Health Select Committee report was published last week. This examined the disaster of the recruitment into postgraduate medical training that caused so much anguish for junior doctors and their seniors last summer. 

• We concluded that the planning and implementation of the new training arrangements (under the title of Modernising Medical Careers) were inept and led to chaos and crisis. 
• We blamed inadequate leadership at the Department of Health, particularly by the Chief Medical Officer whose role appeared to be ill-defined. We called for a re-definition of his role because, in my view, such a doctor cannot be a civil servant and an independent leader of the medical profession at the same time. 
• We also criticised the leadership within the medical profession for not influencing the process sufficiently to avoid the crisis. For this year the difficulties remain as predictably the Appeal Court has ruled that immigrant doctors, who have helped the NHS for years when we were not training enough of our own doctors, cannot now be expelled.

As sadly some of our very good undergraduates are failing to obtain places at Medical Schools I have put in a Parliamentary Question to try to find out the proportion of our medical school places that are being given to students from abroad.
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The heartening return to cricket weather prompts a look at local sides' progress.
Kidderminster Victoria, Wyre Forest's premier club, have started slowly but a total of 266 last Saturday against Warmley was under-pinned by an impressive and cultured 88 not out by the eighteen year old Neil, who is the latest member of the club's Pinner cricket dynasty! 
Bewdley CC, following relegation last year, head their second division table by gaining their third convincing, consecutive victory at the weekend.

The prospect for our cricket is good.

R.T.

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