Future Fit: Shropshire A&E review is hit by new delays
Plans to reorganise Shropshire's health services will be pushed back yet again, it has been confirmed.
A review into the Future Fit programme, which was set up to decide where hospital services are located in the county, has been delayed further after bosses could not find anyone to carry out the independent review.
The announcement follows news revealed by the Shropshire Star earlier this year that work had still not progressed on the review, three months after it was announced.
Those behind the review insisted last month that an independent chair would be appointed “in the coming weeks”.
In a report to Shropshire’s Clinical Commissioning Group, Debbie Vogler, director of the Future Fit programme, said work has yet to start but that an appointment could soon be made.
She said: “The programme timeline will need to be reviewed due to the delay in appointing the firm to perform the independent review of the option appraisal proces. A delay in the decision making and consultation process is assumed.”
The CCG says it has made two failed attempts to tender the review. It now has two ‘proposals’ and insists a decision could be made as soon as next week.
The review would take four weeks, with a potential conclusion in mid-July.
The Future Fit process, which could see one of the county’s A&E units set up at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital department downgraded, began more than three years ago.
It has since spent millions of pounds on deciding where hospital services should be located.
The board came up with its preferred option of the A&E unit at the RSH last year. But Telford & Wrekin Council threatened legal action and it was decided that a review should be taken into how the decision making process was carried out.
Following the review, plans are expected to go to public consultation and a final decision will then be made.
A report to Wednesday's CCG meeting adds: “This single issue is the primary delay in the programme timeline and critical path and will impact on consultation.”
Following the delay, it means consultation will not begin as had been expected this summer.
