Mid Worcestershire MP Peter Luff said news of the redundancies marked the blackest day he could remember in Worcestershire's history.

"I express my deep sorrow for the redundancy threat hanging over more than 700 hundred local nurses, doctors and NHS workers at Worcestershire's hospitals.

"The blame lies firmly at the door of government ministers and not with local NHS managers.

"The looming £30m deficit, on top of a historic deficit of about another £30m is the result of government policy.

"I know local managers will make every effort to save as many jobs as possible and so do all they can to protect the local NHS, but I just don't see how this situation can have anything other than the most serious consequences for patient services.

"In the run-up to the 2005 election, the government frantically drove the NHS to meet over-ambitious political targets - and told trust managers to use every accounting trick in the book to conceal the scale of the financial problems this would inevitably create.

"After the election, the new Secretary of State demanded an immediate return to financial balance, causing the current crisis.

"All this comes on top of the significant under funding of our local NHS because of a flawed funding formula and the very high costs of the PFI contracts at both Worcester and Kidderminster.

This is the but the latest in a string of recent spectacular failures of government policy."

l Worcester MP Mike Foster denied the blame lay at the door of the Labour Government.

"First of all I can understand that this is a deeply anxious time for members of staff. That goes without saying.

"But I have spoken to the chairman of the Acute Trust and had assurances from him that patient care will not be affected by these changes and that there will be no adverse impact on waiting times.

"They have come down dramatically since Labour has been in power and this is good news.

"I don't blame management as I don't go into the blame game. It's too easy.

The targets this Government sets are in the best interest of patients and anybody that suggests they are the cause of the financial problems should ask themselves 'what's the alternative?'

"We are not going to go back to how the health service was when Labour took over. People are quick to blame the PFI initiative - but if we didn't have the PFI we wouldn't have the new hospital. That's the reality. I know what kind of hospital I want my constituents treated in."