Future Fit: Oswestry must keep urgent care centre if one A&E closes, says mayor

Initial suggestions from Future Fit, which is looking at the provision of hospital services in Shropshire, said one emergency centre would be supported by five urgent care centres - one probably in Oswestry.

But now the man behind the review, David Evans, has said that instead of a new centre extra services will be bolted onto existing provision, including care in the home.

Oswestry Mayor, Councillor Paul Milner, who has organised a public meeting on the future of the health services at the Wynnstay Hotel in Oswestry on Tuesday at 7pm, said it was very disappointing to hear that the town, may now not be having its own urgent care centre.

"I, along with many other residents, have attended numerous Future Fit meetings over the past 12 months or so," he said.

"We were told that there were going to be urgent care centre, not only in Oswestry but in other rural towns.

"Now we are being told this will not happen, which is very disappointing and worrying."

Councillor Milner, who is also a member of the Shropshire Patient Group, is urging as many as possible to get along to the meeting at the Wynnstay, hosted by the town council.

Speakers will include Mr Evans, the Accountable Officer of the Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Gill George of Shropshire Defend Our NHS.

"It is hoped the a representative of our local doctors will be free to attend and speak," Councillor Milner said.

The Mayor set up a petition calling for local health services to be protected and for Shrewsbury to retain its A&E services.

"It now has well over 1,000 signatures and I have had many residents come to me to express their fears over the loss of A&E at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital," he added.

"Oswestry's Primary Care Centre and Minor Injuries Unit are fantastic but if we are to lose an A&E we need an urgent care centre in Oswestry."

North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson said he wanted to see the bulk of care delivered at A&E departments covered much closer to home in Urgent Care Centres.

"This could be done by enhancing the services of the Oswestry Primary Care Centre. On the eastern side of North Shropshire I would like to see an Urgent Care Centre in Whitchurch Community Hospital," he said.

"My preferred option for the future is to establish a state of the art Emergency Centre covering the whole of Shropshire.

"In Oswestry we won the case to bring X-ray and plastering services to the town.

"This has stopped people who have routine fractures from having to travel, in pain, to Wrexham or Shrewsbury.

"These are the sort of services I would like to see provided by the Urgent Care Centres locally, carrying out the majority of A&E services with only the most serious, life threatening cases travelling to a state-of-the art hospital outside North Shropshire."

Mr Paterson said that at the last three meetings of the Oswestry Health Group there had been unanimous support for the concept of establishing an Urgent Care Centre in both Oswestry and Whitchurch.

"I look forward to hearing that the final Future Fit proposals will confirm these original far sighted plans which will deliver much better healthcare locally for all of us in North Shropshire," he said.

"The Future Fit process has dragged on for far too long."