The Romsey advertiser 3 October 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Fri 3rd Oct 2008

This last week has been the last week of the parliamentary recess and a time to reflect that, whilst I have been out and about, I haven't managed to knock on quite as many doors as planned.

The last week has been focussed on the Southampton part of the constituency as a lot of new students have been moving into the halls of residence. This year the student experience has been quite schizoid as I have also found myself in the role of parent. For the uninitiated, this involves filling a car with the supposed requirements for student life and then lugging it up many flights of stairs. If you are an MP the next part of the challenge is not to embarrass your offspring by mentioning politics or by complaining about anything that is not up to scratch.

I have also spent some time in London this week. On Monday night I attended the Pharmacy Business Awards, which is a very large affair. For some reason they asked me to say grace which was very daunting when I realised that I was only one of four people doing this as there were also Moslem, Hindu and Sikh prayers to follow.

On Tuesday I had a fascinating visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital to discuss radiotherapy and see one of the latest machines in action. The latest update combines diagnostic imaging with a sophisticated machine which moves around the patient and delivers varying doses of treatment from different angles. This enables the radiographer to deal much more accurately with things such as irregularly shaped tumours. Unfortunately, there is always a problem to be discussed as well. The problem in this case is that many of the countries radiotherapy machines will soon be reaching the end of their useful lives and there is no sign that there is a programme in place for their replacement. When I was first elected there were some heartbreaking stories of people being diagnosed with cancer, having surgery and then being forced to wait months to begin treatment. Happily things have improved since then but I would not want to go back to those dark days again.

In fact, considering that it is a constituency week, it has turned into something of a medical week because I am visiting a hospital in Southampton to discuss endoscopy services.

All of this has been set against a background of yet more financial chaos unfolding. It was therefore good to listen to the Today programme to hear Vince Cable being lauded by one of the presenters, Evan Davies. This is particularly rewarding as Evan is also a respected economist and mentioned that Vince Cable had been e mailing him, predicting some of the current problems, for some years. Politics is so often "in the moment" that it is reassuring to hear an acknowledgement of years of solid work in a field.

Published with kind permission of Romsey Advertiser