AN under-threat building at Kidderminster Hospital must be saved from the bulldozer and rented out to a private company to generate much needed cash, the district's MP has urged.

Handing over the rest of a building to the Capital Medical Engineering Training Centre - the only centre in the UK to provide specialist training for complex medical equipment - would be a welcome boost to hard-hit hospital finances, Wyre Forest MP Dr Richard Taylor said.

The future of the building is in the balance as part of a review by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust of what should be kept at the site, in Bewdley Road.

In parliament last week, Dr Taylor asked health minister, John Hutton, to "encourage local managers to allow this training centre to take over more of a block that might otherwise be developed".

The leasing of the rest of the stand-alone pathology building would "produce useful income" for the trust, which was "labouring under a large debt at the moment".

Mr Hutton commended the firm - which has provided training for equipment such as ventilators and defibrillators at the site for the last two years - but insisted the decision was a matter for the trust.

Dr Taylor told the Shuttle/Times & News: "Throughout the UK there is no formal training for these sort of people.

"It is something we want to encourage because it is putting Wyre Forest on the map."

Centre manager, Rob Strange, said: "It would be frustrating if they did demolish the building. We would have to find premises elsewhere.

"It would be a great shame for us and Kidderminster to lose this training centre."

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman, Richard Haynes, said: "We are going to work very closely with Capital to find out how we can work best together."