THE consultation on the future of Lea Castle Hospital as we knew it, now the Lea Castle Centre, runs from January 7 until March 28.

It is sad for those of us who knew it at its peak when it had 600 beds and was an internationally recognised centre of excellence for people with learning difficulties and associated mental health problems.

Now because local services throughout the country have improved, the need for a national centre has gone and the users of the service are now down to only 35 most of whom are from our county.

The need to change the way the service is provided results from this decline in need.

At meetings at Lea Castle I have asked for a complete list of all the services currently provided on the site so we will know everything that must be replaced if the decision is taken to close Lea Castle.

I will press for the complete replacement of these services within Wyre Forest with the least disruption possible to the vulnerable users and with the preservation of as many jobs as possible for the dedicated staff that have such highly specialised, unique skills which must not be discarded.

I have recently learnt of an apparent gross unfairness that is affecting our Acute Hospitals Trust.

The trust has a historic deficit of £25 million built up before any of the current management took their posts.

Two other trusts in the West Midlands, one with a cumulative deficit of £50 million and the other of £20 million, are both being helped to get back into balance by the NHS West Midlands, the new name for the Strategic Health Authority (SHA).

One trust is to receive over £14 million and the other over £6 million direct from the SHA as part of recovery packages that reduce the trusts own contributions to a manageable £1 million per year for five years.

Meanwhile, we have to pay a crippling £5 million per year for five years without the same help. How can this be fair?

I have written to the SHA to complain and ask for the reasons for this.

Elsewhere in this week's Shuttle you will read of the progress of the trial of a doctor in the minor injuries unit at our hospital.

I was delighted to be asked to help publicise this vital improvement in our emergency services and I hope the extra information about the unit's increased capabilities will encourage more local people to use it, not as an alternative to GP services, but for worrying illnesses in addition to the wider range of injuries that can now be coped with.

It has been made possible by a large contribution from the Hospital League of Friends and has to show it reduces costs for the acute trust and the ambulance trust to make it self-financing so it can be maintained and hopefully extended in the future.

If readers wish to write to Dr Taylor, they should address correspondence to his constituency office at 137 Franche Road, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, DY11 5AP.

9:24am Wednesday 16th January 2008

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