CONSERVATIVE Parliamentary Candidate for Redditch Rachel Maclean launched her General Election campaign outside the Alexandra Hospital last Sunday.
Mrs Maclean is hoping to be re-elected when voters head to the polls on Thursday, December 12.
On the day Mrs Maclean reaffirmed her commitment to getting maternity and children’s services back at the Alex.
She said: “The Alex has been and always will be my top priority, which is why I launched my re-election campaign outside our town’s hospital.
“I’ve delivered the promised investment at the hospital.
“Work is set to start next year to improve the elective care centre, endoscopy, children’s outpatients and an upgrade in theatres.”
Mrs Maclean added that she is confident the services will eventually return to the Alex, but it will not happen ‘overnight’.
“If I’m given the great honour of being re-elected the MP for Redditch, I can promise you that we will get Brexit done and continue to invest in our schools, NHS and police.”
She chose to campaign outside the Alex despite a call from the head of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, to not use the National Health Service as a ‘political weapon’.
He told BBC radio that ‘over-dramatising NHS difficulties’ or making ‘disingenuous’ funding claims did the service ‘no favours’.
“Quite rightly the NHS performance is a matter of political debate but let’s be very careful about weaponising that performance as a means of advancing a political argument.”
Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Redditch, Rebecca Jenkins, said the problems with the NHS come from the last nine years of ‘Tory Government’.
She said: “To stand in front of the very hospital asking you to trust them, in the name of the NHS, which they have systematically damaged, is utterly grotesque.”
Mrs Maclean was elected to represent Redditch in 2017, taking over the seat vacated by Karen Lumley who chose not to stand on health grounds.
