Urgent care centres 'key' to area's health
Urgent care centres in Oswestry and Whitchurch are the key to unlocking the best health care for the people of north Shropshire, MP Owen Paterson has said.
But he says they must have overnight beds for those who need them.
The MP said doctors and health specialists in the Oswestry area are fully behind the Future Fit plans for just one emergency care centre for Shropshire, backed up by urgent care centres across the county.
The NHS Future Fit consultation is expected to announce on October 1 where that care centre – replacing accident and emergency departments at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford – should be.
There has been countywide controversy over the location. But Mr Paterson said: "With the creation of the urgent care centres it will not matter where the emergency centre is as it will only be the most seriously ill patients who will go there by ambulance. All other patients will be seen in the urgent care centres."
"I have been consistently in favour of the one emergency centre with urgent care centres across the county. We have lost vital health care in Shropshire. If you have a heart attack or stroke you are taken out of county, for example to Stoke, for treatment.
"With just one emergency centre we will have the money and the facilities to attract specialist consultants and bring that specialist care back to Shropshire."
The MP said members of the monthly Health For Oswestry meeting, which he chairs, also backed the Future Fit model.
He said: "Those meetings have representatives from GP surgeries, the CCG, the Orthopaedic Hospital and town and parish councils. They have endorsed the model."
