At present the borough council collects clinical waste under contract to the county council, which is responsible for disposing of it. Clinical waste includes infectious material as well as inert matter. The decision has been taken to reclassify clinical waste.

This means that instead of weekly clinical waste collections, the county council have now cut that service. The waste is now to be disposed of as part of the domestic black wheelie bin or black sack collections.

This Tory cut has horrified users of the clinical waste service.

A fortnightly collection of such waste is not acceptable to service users and carers I have spoken with. Neither will it be acceptable to other members of the community for such waste to be stored for up to two weeks before it is taken away.

One of the forms this waste takes is soiled nappies from adults who are being cared for at home. It is simply unacceptable for this sort of waste to be left in a black bin for two weeks at a time during hot weather.

The Conservative county council has clearly not thought through the impact their decision will have on the privacy and dignity of those who use this service.

Even worse, the borough council staff, who are not responsible for this change in policy, will be the ones in the front line forced to bear all the criticism for this insensitive decision.