WITH the announcement that time spent waiting to be seen by a doctor at A and E departments is getting ever longer, especially in the West Midlands, it comes as no surprise to hear Harold Musgrove, is standing down as chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

He must know the health plan he has tried to force through for the people of Worcestershire, including the closure of Kidderminster's A and E, has been a complete disaster, as many people will testify, who have tried to use the system over the last year.

Mr Musgrove's strong tactics, obviously learnt from his years at British Leyland, have back-fired on him in some ways, with many loyal NHS staff retiring early, moving to other trusts, or even quitting the NHS altogether, knowing that the plans were nonsensical, thus increasing already chronic staff shortages.

With his departure a big question mark must now hang over the future of the under-performing Worcestershire Health Authority and one question I would like MP Dr Richard Taylor to ask the ever-elusive Health Secretary Alan Milburn is, how on earth can an unelected body of people, set up by the previous Conservative Government, still be running our health service when that government was voted out of power more than four years ago?

Mr Milburn must know by now, as does David Lock to his cost, that those plans are unworkable and that the people of Wyre Forest and Worcestershire deserve better.

A NORTH

Windsor Drive,

Stourport