OUR frontline NHS staff deserve more support, especially when their effort and dedication is overlooked when they take the rap for matters beyond their control. Our local Hospitals’ Trust was criticised again last week by the Care Quality Commission. It claimed Treliske Urgent, Emergency and Medical services “require further improvement”, following a recent inspection.

However, this shouldn’t be interpreted as a criticism of frontline staff. They go the extra mile in extremely difficult and stressful circumstances and work under intense pressure to provide a 24/7 urgent and emergency service. The Truro Emergency Department and Penzance Urgent Treatment Centre operate in a climate of extreme precariousness. With the risk of tipping into a “major incident” and failure at almost any moment.

I recently met Steve Williamson, the Trust CEO, and senior staff at West Cornwall Hospital, where the current pressure at the Emergency Department and the Urgent Treatment Centre was a key focus. Ever since the Trust was obliged to follow central diktat to cut hospital beds, even while pressure from demand, demographics and population growth increased pressure on the emergency front door of the hospital, the service has struggled, with ambulance queues, corridor care and improvisation, while the hospital has been operating at close to 100% bed occupancy. This problem is especially acute the further west you go in a long peninsula, leaving those in the far west most vulnerable.

This situation is unsustainable. Government ministers must now recognise this and act. Cornwall’s NHS cannot ask for support from services to the west, north or south. That must be taken into account.

I received an unexpected award this week. It was a genuine surprise and a pleasure to have had my efforts over many years (in fact more than 20 years!) appreciated by one of the many worthy groups it’s been my honour to have worked with. When I was last in parliament helped create and then chair the national Grocery Market Action Group, which campaigned for fair treatment for small suppliers and small retailers, and to combat the less-than-good behaviour of the large and powerful supermarkets.

It was kind of the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) to remember my work going back decades! To describe me as a “Fair trade Champion” was kind, but I was fortunate to have a wonderful and talented team around me. Convenience stores, both locally and nationally, include the full range of remarkable, hard-working, brave, and enterprising people who run our corner shops, pharmacies, post offices, bakeries, and other shops upon which many of us depend. While supermarkets dominate, and of course we all use them to a greater or lesser extent, it’s the small independents which weld-together our neighbourhoods, under-pin our lives, and which reflect the beating heart of our communities.

Since returning to Parliament, I’ve carried on where I left off. Fighting for the underdog, campaigning for the small, and to combat the abusive use of market muscle by the big-boys. That work now continues…