Future Fit: 'Time to rip it up and start again'

As the review into A&E departments comes to an end, Mark Pritchard demanded it goes "back to the drawing board”.

Hospital bosses will meet tonight to put forward a recommendation and discuss a start date for a public consultation. It is the start of a process expected to see Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital lose its accident and emergency department. It would instead have a downgraded urgent care centre, with Royal Shrewsbury Hospital housing the county’s only A&E centre.

Mark Pritchard, whose Wrekin constituency takes in the PRH, described the plan as “gross folly”. He also criticised plans to downgrade PRH’s £28 million Women and Children’s Centre, which was only built two years ago, and to move those services to RSH.

In an open letter to the Star, Mr Pritchard:

• Criticised "erratic" decision-making and a lack of clear leadership

• Questioned the validity of an independent review into the process carried out by London-based KPMG

• Said he would demand a Parliamentary debate on the issue

The MP said: “Decisions should still only be made on clinical and medical grounds and cannot ignore objective socio-demographic and economic evidence that makes the case for retaining the women and children’s unit and the associated accident and emergency provision at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. Indeed, the evidence in favour of Telford is overwhelming.”

A joint committee of Future Fit was meeting tonight at Shrewsbury College. It will be asked to ratify a recommendation for the changes and ask NHS England to approve them.

Bosses had hoped to start public consultation in June, but the KPMG review delayed the process and it now likely to start in September or October.

Mr Pritchard says more thought should be given to the idea of a ‘super hospital’ mid-way between Telford and Shrewsbury, something that was considered at the start of the Future Fit process but disregarded early on as being too expensive.

Despite his concerns for the plans, he said it was imperative that a decision is made quickly for the benefit of the whole of Shropshire.

Mr Pritchard said: “Along with local councillors, I will continue fighting to retain local services in our local hospital, that is what I have done for the last fifteen years.

“But whatever the outcome of all the various campaigns to save local hospital services a decision must be taken sooner rather than later - and in the interests of Shropshire as a whole.”

Mr Pritchard also said he took issue with the proposals to close A&E at the Princess Royal Hospital overnight, something that has been heavily criticised by Telford & Wrekin Councillors.

Members of the council agreed a vote of no-confidence in the trust over the overnight closure proposals and called on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to intervene after it was proposed that the emergency department could close overnight from as early as September, because of staff shortages.

MP Mark Pritchard explains why he believes the Future Fit review of our hospitals is flawed

Today the future of the Princess Royal Hospital, also known as the Future Fit Programme, will supposedly be coming to an end, although any decisions taken about what the preferred options are for the future of the hospital will still need to go out to a formal public consultation.

Nonetheless, it is likely that this week will be the beginning of the end of this whole long and drawn out hospital reconfiguration process.

While any further delays to the future of the reconfiguration would be unhelpful, decisions should still only be made on clinical and medical grounds and cannot ignore objective socio-demographic and economic evidence that makes the case for retaining the women and children’s unit and the associated accident and emergency provision at the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford.

Indeed, the evidence in favour of Telford is overwhelming.

Putting aside the weak and sometimes erratic nature of some local health management decisions in recent years, which has undermined public confidence in the whole reconfiguration process, there is also the question of a lack of clear leadership on the issue.

That is why, whatever decision is taken over the coming weeks, I will be asking the national reconfiguration panel of the NHS to fully investigate whether the Future Fit recommendations are themselves fit for purpose.

Now the recommendations are known, I will also be asking Mr Speaker to allow me to hold a Parliamentary debate on the issue.

Lucy Allen and I, along with local Conservative councillors, are fully united in standing up for local health services.

I also think that there is a legitimate question in asking what do London-centric accountants, namely KPMG, really know about local health needs?

Was KPMG told a preferred independent review outcome and asked to work back from there? How independent and objective has this whole independent review been?

Why are local health bosses holding key meetings in the summer break when many constituents, councillors and hospital staff are away on holiday?

Why start a public consultation process in the school holidays when many families are on their summer holidays? Either way, both the process and recommendations for the public consultation are fundamentally flawed.

Telford has the fastest growing and youngest part of the county’s population.

These same factual reasons justified the retention and expansion of the women and children’s unit in Telford just two years ago at a cost of £28 million to the taxpayer.

These same reasons have become stronger not weaker. The women and children’s unit must stay in Telford.

Either it was gross folly to expand the women and children’s unit in Telford just two years ago – or it is gross folly to suggest downgrading it now. I suggest the latter is the case.

Health bosses and KPMG need to go back to the drawing board and produce a report that is backed by socio-demographic evidence. The same goes for the accident and emergency provision in Telford. Overnight closures are completely unacceptable.

A failure to recruit enough consultants for the hospital is ultimately a failure by local health bosses who should have been far more pro-active in recruitment campaigns a very long time ago. Furthermore, many of the key decisions facing the two clinical care commissioning groups and the hospital trust should also have been taken years ago.

The problem is now far worse because of weak leadership and dithering.

More thought also needs to be given to the possibility of a new super hospital midway between Telford and Shrewsbury. It is rumoured that land near Walcot has already been earmarked as a possible site, but little thought or even consultation has been offered for this option.

If Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council are open to this possibility, and I hear some leading councillors are, and also possibly entering into some strategic financial partnership with the hospital trust, then a super hospital should be more fully considered before any final decisions are made on the reconfiguration process.

Along with local councillors, I will continue fighting to retain local services in our local hospital – that is what I have done for the last 15fifteen years.

But whatever the outcome of all the various campaigns to save local hospital services a decision must be taken sooner rather than later – and in the interests of Shropshire as a whole.

Tory colleagues clash as Future Fit D-Day arrives

He is a Tory colleague of Mark Pritchard – but on the future of Shropshire’s hospitals Daniel Kawczynski’s views are diametrically opposed.

According to the Shrewsbury & Atcham MP, anyone getting in the way of Future Fit is risking “grave” consequences for the county.

Mr Kawczynski those “trying to obstruct” the Future Fit process, could lead to the county losing out on the funding required to complete the project, and would have to answer to the people of Shropshire for their actions.

The MP also raised concerns about politicians interfering in the decision making process.

He said: “I have to say I am really worried about politicians going against the absolutely clinical and medically driven determination of the chief executive and his whole team. This is not just one person in the whole organisation, this is from the chief executive all the way down, saying the situation is critical and they need to make these changes to provide safety and quality patient care for Shropshire and Mid Wales.

“And people, who are now at the 11th hour trying to obstruct this clinical process, have to be very careful what they’re doing because the consequences could be very grave for the county.

“This project will attract more than £350 million, the biggest single investment in local health services for decades, if we lose that money because other areas are competing against us then again they will have to answer to the people of Shropshire.”

Mr Kawczynski said it is right that after years of debate over the issues of Shropshire’s hospitals that the public have their say on the plans.

He said: “Jeremy Hunt has made it absolutely clear that this situation has to be resolved locally and that we must have confidence, quite rightly, in the clinicians leading this process and I am very pleased they are inching towards the public consultation.

“What do these people have to fear? That is the key question, what do they have to fear about allowing this process to take its final course? What is it that Telford & Wrekin Council and people on that side of the county have to fear in allowing members of the public to have their say?

“After three years of constant debate on this issue it is now time for the public to have their say. They have followed it for three years, there are many strong views from the public and that has to be the priority.”