I NOTED from the front page of Saturday's Evening News (May 26) that Labour candidate David Lock believes Dr Taylor has misled people by claiming that he could bring emergency services back to Kidderminster.

Having been heavily involved in managing Kidderminster General Hospital when it had an A&E Department, and having gained a very detailed understanding of how the NHS functions over a period of 25 years, I firmly believe that full services could be restored to Kidderminster in a relatively short time.

This is provided, of course, that the buildings are not demolished.

My recollection is that during the consultation period all the consultant doctors who managed the A&E departments at Worcester, Redditch and Kidderminster believed that blue light services could be safely retained at all three hospitals.

At that time the view from the Health Authority was different; they said that full A&E services could only be safely maintained at one place - Worcester, and that all the A&E consultants in the county were needed there.

If the Health Authority view prevailed and Kidderminster was downgraded, why is there still a full A&E service at Redditch?

Will it be removed when the new hospital in Worcester opens?

Knowledge

To my knowledge there was never any attempt made by Worcestershire Health Authority to look for a way of retaining A&E services at Kidderminster.

However, I am quite convinced that medical staffing within the county could be organised in a way which allows all three hospitals to safely provide a wide range of services, including A&E.

The Labour Government approved the Health Authority plan and Kidderminster has now been downgraded, with the consequent problems recently reported at Worcester.

However, these will only worsen when Redditch A&E is also downgraded and even more patients need to be treated in the new hospital

which was not originally designed to cope with them.

DEREK ROBERTS, (Retired) Director of Finance of the former Kidderminster Health Care Trust