WHETHER it's to do with the number of beds planned for the hospital, a shortage of staff, or the the lack of alternative contingency plans for the closing of wards hit by diarrhoea, the Worcestershire Royal quickly reached a point where it couldn't cope.

To some degree, the semantics of the actual difficulties on December 2, 11 and 17 are irrelevant. What isn't is that the hospital couldn't admit any more patients.

Worryingly, we're not aware of anything that's been done to make sure such a crisis doesn't happen again.

Indeed, if Peter Luff's claim in the Commons yesterday is correct, the hospital has been on red alert regularly.

If the shift from foot to foot at the Despatch Box was a clue to how uncomfortable Mr Blair was feeling about being taken to task, then he'll have some idea of how the huge majority of people in Worcestershire have been feeling for the past five or six years.

It was easy to see such a situation developing when it became apparent, in the wake of the Investing in Excellence strategic health review, that the county would have fewer beds than before, and that they would be in fewer places, thanks to the downgrading of Kidderminster General.

Two things stand out in the Prime Minister's personal message to county folk in the Evening News, ironically on the Ides of March last year.

"From what I've heard," he told you firmly, "the Worcestershire Royal will help meet the city and county's health needs for decades to come."

He went on to say that, "after decades of waiting", patients would care that Worcester had a "state-of-the-art NHS hospital treating NHS patients - a hospital of which the city, county and NHS staff can be proud. And that's what matters to me too".

Not as much as it matters to those who couldn't find a bed before Christmas, or the ones blissfully unaware that their wait in an ambulance, desperate for the loving care of the medics, is yet to come.