Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) on securing the debate. I shall have to make my 10-minute speech in four minutes.

Patients lives "will be put at risk" following plans by hospital chiefs to close a super bug isolation ward at The Princess Royal Hospital, that's according to Wrekin MP, Mark Pritchard.

Mr Pritchard made his comments to hospital chief executive, Tom Taylor, when the pair met last week at the opening of the hospital's new satellite renal unit.

Mr Pritchard who successfully campaigned for the infections isolation unit to be opened in 2003 - said returning patients to side rooms off main wards "was not satisfactory at all" and would endanger lives.

Campaigners hoping to stop cuts to hospital services at the Princess Royal Hospital will gather on Saturday 11th March, for what organisers are calling, a 'March for Life'.

Campaigners are due to meet at 11am at The Charlton Arms Hotel in Wellington and then March to the entrance of the Princess Royal Hospital.

Wrekin MP and leader of the March for Life Organising Committee, Mark Pritchard, said:

The ongoing debate about the future provision of clinical and medical services at the Princess Royal Hospital should not be clouded by what has gone on in the past. Yes, local people have been misled by local Labour politicians; yes, past senior management oversaw a series of "corporate failings" and yes, there is the painful hangover from the Trust's historical debt and the merger with the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

Wrekin MP, Mark Pritchard, and hospital supporters distributed "scores of petitions" in Wellington over the weekend in what the MP calls "one of many ways" in which he is seeking to challenge plans to cut hospital services at the Princess Royal hospital.

The MP said that petitions can be collected from his offices at 25 Church Street, Wellington or downloaded from his hospital campaign web site - www.savethe prh.com

Hundreds have already signed Wrekin MP, Mark Pritchard's hospital Petition, which aims to stop cuts to save hospital services at the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford.

The hospital is in Mr Pritchard's constituency.

Mr Pritchard said he was encouraged by the support he had received from the whole community .

People wanting to sign the Petition to save hospital services, can do so, by either going on-line at wwsavetheprh.com or signing petitions in local shops and businesses.

The MP is expected to present his Petition to Parliament in the next few weeks.

Mark Pritchard : I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. I am flattered, and I am glad that I parted my hair in the way that I did this morning-clearly, it works. On that point of financial mismanagement, how does she respond to the independent financial inquiry into the financial mismanagement and series of corporate failings of the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust? Does she not feel a sense of responsibility, given that her office appointed the chairman, who has now resigned, the chief executive, who has resigned, and the deputy chief executive, who has gone?

Mark Pritchard: The Secretary of State has said that record investment has gone into the NHS, but my constituents are asking why the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust has a £14 million deficit and why they face huge cuts to local hospital services despite paying record national insurance contributions. I was going to raise a point of order, but I will not. [Laughter.]

Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman showed great discretion at that point in his intervention.

Last week the Independent Inquiry into the financial management and governance at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust discovered that the "financial position of the Trust, in 2004/5, was a potential financial gap of £14 million". This is a huge figure and confirms local claims of misreporting and financial mismanagement that has now left the hospital Trust in a far worse financial position than was first feared. The Inquiry report goes further and reveals "serious failings" and "a series of corporate failings" as well as a lack of governance within the Trust.

Wrekin MP, Mark Pritchard, has written to Michael Frater, Chief Executive of the Borough of Telford & Wrekin Council, calling on the Council to "ensure more rigorous measures are put in place" so that the Council's Health Scrutiny and Overview Committee will in future not "be so easily misled" (item 64) by information, or the lack of information, being provided to the Council - by the Trust's Board.