Shot in the arm for Ludlow Community Hospital

One year on after plans for a £27 million building were scrapped, plenty of modernising and upgrading work has gone on at the old cottage hospital site on Gravel Hill – but there is much more to do, said Peter Corfield, chairman of the hospital's League of Friends, and big decisions to be made before it can be done.

The news that the lease, from NHS Property Services, is being finalised has provided some certainty about what lies ahead, but with the Future Fit review of how NHS services will be delivered across the county still ongoing, there are still questions over what will become of the Minor Injuries Unit at the hospital, with hopes it will be upgraded to a new Urgent Care Centre.

In the meantime more than £160,000 has been pumped into the ageing hospital in Ludlow, which has seen new flooring, electrics and plumbing, new toilet and shower rooms and a refurbished cafe.

The previously mixed wards are now also single sex only to improve privacy, with the Dinham ward downstairs for female patients and the Stretton Ward upstairs for male patients.

The League of Friends itself has funded plenty of improvements at the hospital too.

Mr Corfield opened the door into a side room that he said was due to become much more cosy. He said: "We're refurbishing this room so that relatives here with patients who are at a critical stage of their illness can relax a bit, rather than being sat next to the bed for days on end.

"There will be a TV and a microwave and we'll dress it with soft furnishings, carpets, pillows and throws. We spent about £10,000 on it. It will also be a place where people can come and be counselled by the various teams that look after them in an end-of-life situation, because there is nowhere to do that at the moment."

Stepping outside on to a patio area, he continued: "There was a garden here before but it hadn't been tended to in years. We spent about £4,000 clearing it. What we wanted to do was give people access to the outside. Now they can wheel people out in the fresh air, and in good weather perhaps they can go out on to the lawn."

He said they were hoping to hold a hospital fete this summer. The friends have also funded a new minor injuries unit chair which cost £1,691, he said, and new cardiac monitoring equipment, complete with defibrillator, which cost £10,400.

But, he said, both the hospital and League of Friends had hit a wall of uncertainty when planning the next phase of work, such as upgrading maternity services as the new lease needs to be signed.

The main hospital – which dealt with 1,700 in-patients, 2,690 outpatient appointments and 4,532 minor injuries unit attendances in 2014 – is run by Shropshire Community Health Trust, but the building is owned by NHS Property Services, also known as PropCo.

"That is constraining what they can do with this building. For works next year it depends now on getting a capital expenditure agreement – and until we get the lease I don't think that's going to happen," he said. "The other problem we have is Future Fit, which at the moment is concentrating on A&E services in Telford and Shrewsbury. We have a real concern that we get the right care in our area – we feel Ludlow must have an urgent care centre."

The League of Friends was encouraged by a recent letter from those behind NHS Future Fit agreeing to look at upgrading urgent care in each of Shropshire's four community hospital areas, with tailor-made services, he said.

It had been proposed that only two new urgent care centres would be created outside Shrewsbury and Telford to service the rest of the county – leading to fears that Ludlow, Bishop's Castle, Bridgnorth and Whitchurch would have to fight it out over who should get them, and services such as minor injuries units may be lost from those who didn't. But now more talks are being held with hospitals such as Ludlow, as well as GPs, health centres and patients.

Future Fit bosses have pledged to make decisions on what is needed on a case-by-case basis, promising improvements and not a downgrading of services.

Mr Corfield said it was positive news.

"There is no way they could come up with a one-size-fits-all GP-led model, because out in the sticks here we wouldn't necessarily have a doctor always on duty."

He said the League of Friends had agreed to fund an upgrade of the maternity unit with a new birthing pool and ultrasound, but until Future Fit decisions were made it was unwise to go ahead.

He said the maternity and dialysis services in Ludlow hospital were currently outsourced by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

"What we don't want to do is fund equipment owned by Shrewsbury and Telford that we then lose if they take the service away – we need ownership of the services," he said.