THE ELECTED councillors and the prospective candidates of Independent Community and Health Concern deplore the loss of local services for the elderly and mentally impaired due to the closure of Harvington Ward, in the Robertson Centre at Kidderminster Hospital.

This group of patients are likely to have elderly relatives, some of whom will not have their own transport. Moving to Bromsgrove, with the limited public transport available, will be a disaster for this vulnerable group of patients and their families and friends.

The arguments in favour of this move cannot be to make economies as, at the same time, the Wyre Forest Community Unit is moving into this same block.

Is this an example of a lack of joined-up thinking, as these units are under different management in this confusingly re-organised local National Health Service?

Surely common sense would have suggested that both these units could be accommodated in other, currently unused sites, in partially occupied blocks at Bewdley Road.

The lack of consultation about this significant change in services is an additional cause of real concern.

Is it too late for the separate trusts and their directors to get together to review the whole situation, with the interests of Wyre Forest patients foremost?

Richard T Taylor FRCP MBE President, Independent Community and Health Concern, Kidderminster