MP Owen Paterson joins Shropshire A&E centre row

The North Shropshire MP said he had grown tired of the fight between Telford and Shrewsbury for A&E services and said developing a new site would mean seriously ill patients who currently have to be taken to regional specialist centres could be looked after closer to home.

Mr Paterson did not specify a particular location. His views are likely to prove controversial with campaigners who want to see A&E units retained at Telford's Princess Royal and the Royal Shrewsbury hospitals.

Mr Paterson told a meeting of health specialists yesterday: "I am fed up of the pillow fighting over whether the emergency care centre should be in Shrewsbury or Telford.

"It is not the location that is important, it is the desperate need in Shropshire for a state-of-the-art emergency centre.

"At the moment if you suffer a stroke or a heart attack then you have to be taken to Stoke. If we had a state-of-the-art centre here we could attract the top consultants and be able to treat those patients in their own county.

"We already have a wonderful primary care centre in Oswestry. It would not be difficult to expand that to an urgent care centre. In Whitchurch we have the old cottage hospital with the potential to hold an urgent care centre.

"Patients would not have to trek to Shrewsbury or the Wrexham Maelor but would be treated closer to where they live."

The MP was giving his views to yesterday's monthly Oswestry Health meeting.

He said one emergency centre and other urgent care centres fitted with Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust's Future Fit consultation over how health services should be provided in the future.

As well as consulting on emergency care, the trust proposes four urgent care centres.

These would be at Telford and Shrewsbury, with two others either in Oswestry, Whitchurch, Ludlow or Bridgnorth.