Sadiq Khan talks about how hard he has been working with St George's Hospital to "build a record of transparency and accountability" when it comes to letting the community know what is happening at their local hospital.

Either that is a blatant piece of New Labour spin or Mr Khan needs to work still harder because the hospital's record on being open and transparent is rather poor.

The fact that 116 people have died at St George's since 2004 from MRSA or C Diff infections they contracted while being treated there is clearly a matter of enormous public concern.

Yet hospital managers chose to be neither transparent nor accountable when it came to these worrying statistics. Indeed the figures had to be dragged out of them using the Freedom of Information Act as they simply refused to release them until forced to do so.

The council's health scrutiny committee - established by an act of Parliament to monitor local health services - had been asking for these figures for months, but were being resisted at every step of the way by the hospital's management.

No one would have known about this scandalous state of affairs if it had been left up to the hospital to tell us. Mr Khan seems to be wholly satisfied with the way that the hospital's management has handled this very serious issue.

Our local MP should not defend such obstructive behaviour, endorse attempts to conceal this information and take the side of the medical establishment over and above the people who elected him.

COUNCILLORS SUSAN RICHARDS and ALEX JACOB

Tooting ward