ACCIDENT and Emergency doctors should be temporarily returned to Kidderminster Hospital for a pioneering pilot project, Wyre Forest MP Dr Richard Taylor urged in the Commons on Tuesday.

The trial would show the importance of medical and nursing staff working closely together, Dr Taylor told junior health minister, Stephen Ladyman.

This would also allow staff from Kidderminster's minor injuries unit to visit Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

He said: "The key is to share and rotate medical and nursing staff between units.

"There is no doctor in the minor injuries unit at Kidderminster, so everything that could conceivably require a medical opinion has to go 18 miles away.

"Time after time, the patients who go there are discharged as soon as they are seen and they have the problem of getting home."

Dr Ladyman said: "It is not for me to devise pilot studies that might meet local needs and balance proximity and clinical safety, but for clinicians, the primary care trusts and the acute trusts that serve the honourable gentleman's constituency to come up with ideas."

Dr Taylor was speaking during an adjournment debate on NHS Clinical Networks.