Romsey Advertiser 23 February 2007

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Fri 23rd Feb 2007

I spent the parliamentary recess taking a holiday which had many benefits but the antisocial hours of the return flight were a distinct disadvantage. I arrived at Heathrow airport (my least favourite place on earth) deprived of sleep and a "to do" list that was growing by the minute.

Monday morning was mainly office time but this spread into the afternoon and I arrived at Westminster much later than intended. The main event of the day was a meeting with the Primary Care Trust to discuss the proposed sale of land at Romsey Hospital. I had asked that the League of friends were included and it was made clear to the Chief Executive that the people of Romsey would be very angry if the land was sold to solve a financial deficit problem. The meeting did not have a definitive conclusion as the Chief Exec agreed to speak to the Board about the range of possibilities discussed and as this conversation would take place in private session then it is hard to predict what the outcome of any such discussion might be.

On Tuesday it was back into the Westminster swing with a vengeance and a number of meetings. These included a discussion about housing strategy in Southampton and a meeting with a constituent who was attending the Townswomen's guild lobby to save local post offices.

On Tuesday evening I co-sponsored the launch of a Westminster branch of the Business and Professional Women's Club. Hopefully one of the benefits will be a forum for cross party networking.

Wednesday was very health dominated. I was spoke in a debate on home care in the morning and the main business of the day was a debate on NHS reconfiguration. This may sound a bit dry but the real area of concern was the planned closure of many much appreciated local services. This problem mainly seems to affect constituencies in the south and east of England and I can't help feeling that we may be faced with problems in south Hampshire before long but it is difficult to predict the precise nature of any changes.

The day finished with a Health Select committee dinner to discuss the recent OFT report into the pricing of pharmaceuticals. It was a fascinating discussion but as the whole day has been taken up I am now back in the office frantically typing my diary piece for the week. Once this is done I have my Select Committee papers to read for Thursday, e mails to tackle and a speech to write for a conference on Sunday. There's never a dull moment.

Published with kind permission of Romsey Advertiser