AT the last health questions before dissolution I was able to catch Mr Speaker’s eye to ask, “Will the Secretary of State promote the benefits and safety of midwife-led birth centres distant from consultant obstetric units when they have the right escalation and admission protocols?”

He replied that the Government “would support such midwife-led units when they are what local people want.”

He added the obvious point that change has to be clinically led. My question was to underline that such units, up to 25 miles away from their nearest consultant unit, thrive in other parts of the country for the benefit of mothers-to-be expecting normal deliveries and to sow the seeds for our renewed campaign to re-open the midwife-led unit in Kidderminster.

This was closed because it was unsafe as the appropriate protocols were never put in place when the hospital was downgraded in 2000. We learn this week that the midwife-led unit in Worcester is being deferred due to lack of funds.

Re-instatement of the existing facilities at Kidderminster would surely be a cheaper alternative and benefit the rest of the county as well as ourselves by taking some of the pressure off the consultant unit.

We are now in the final phases of this Parliament awaiting Mr Brown’s announcement of the date of the election which everyone expects to be May 6.

The budget decisions went through with large majorities on Tuesday evening followed by a brief debate on the Lords’ amendments to the Personal Care at Home Bill.

Although there are doubts about the affordability of this proposal, as it would be excellent for many older people no divisions were called and it has been returned to the House of Lords for further comment.

Criticism of the Bill has been disarmed as the Government has published, at the same time as it reaches its final stages, the White Paper, “Building the National Care Service”. This outlines the Government’s flagship aspiration which will now have to wait for the next Parliament and is to establish a Social Care Service equivalent to the NHS.

In the words in the introduction by the PM the National Care Service “will meet the needs of people when they need help, free when they need it. It will be for all – whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever your circumstances.”

Opposition parties will point out the difficulties with affordability but I hope that whoever forms the next Government will follow up this aim and discover ways of affording such a vital service that is long overdue.

Select Committees are finishing off reports that must be published before dissolution. The Health Committee has just published its report on “Commissioning” within the NHS and this is highly critical of the failure of the Government to establish after 20 years whether commissioning and the purchaser/provider split has produced benefit for patients and has not been a costly failure.

We will await reactions to this report which appears to have received little press coverage so far.

An illuminating report on the use of foreign doctors in out-of-hours GP services will appear next week.

DR RICHARD TAYLOR MP