Blair defends policy of soldiers on NHS wards

Oct 19 2006 By Jonathan Walker, Birmingham Mail

BIRMINGHAM'S Selly Oak Hospital was at the centre of a major row in the House of Commons when Tony Blair defended the treatment of injured military personnel.

He accused Conservatives of attacking the NHS and its staff, after they complained that injured soldiers were housed with civilians in mixed wards.

Mr Blair also quoted a hospital statement claiming the complaints were "inaccurate and ill-informed".

The bad-tempered exchange came when a Tory MP claimed the use of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, in Selly Oak, "isn't working".

The centre, run by University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust and the Ministry of Defence, uses the trust's sites in Selly Oak and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where armed forces personnel injured in Afghanistan or Iraq are mixed with other patients.

Speaking during questions to the Prime Minister, Conservative MP Peter Viggers said injured personnel should be treated instead at a military hospital in his constituency of Gosport, Hampshire.

But Mr Blair said: "It is important our soldiers are looked after to the best possible extent.

"But I think it would be quite wrong for people to criticise the NHS and the way they look after people."

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