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Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust

My hon. Friend has correctly anticipated my concluding remarks. I have been somewhat critical of the answers given by the Secretary of State for Health last week, but I should like to finish by saying that I wholly agreed with the Secretary of State's reply to my hon. Friend, when he put that question to him last week. The Secretary of State gave a clear assurance that he was committed to the new hospital and that the case for the new hospital was made even stronger by the appalling experiences that we have suffered from the C. difficile outbreak. My constituents, and those of my hon. Friend, of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald and of my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, have suffered grievously through the delay in the arrival of the new hospital. They have had to endure mixed-sex wards, antiquated buildings, antiquated layouts, and now that terrible infection. I urge the Secretary of State to approve our new Pembury hospital and to approve it forthwith.