Calls for new emergency care centre in Shropshire

Councillor Andrew Eade, leader of the Conservative opposition on Telford & Wrekin Council, has made the call following a fact-finding visit to a similar facility in the north of England.

He was joined on the recent visit by Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard, former chief executive of Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital David Sandbach and Telford & Wrekin Councillor Nigel Dugmore. The group met David Evans, medical director and former chief executive of the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and toured the specialist centre in Cramlington.

After closing three existing A&E departments in Hexham, North Tyneside and Wansbeck, the Northumbria trust built a specialist emergency care centre for £100 million in 2005, located in the middle of three existing general hospitals. The three existing general hospitals were retained and now provide planned surgery and care, while the new centre provides services for trauma, acute medicine, cardiology, strokes, coronary care, maternity, general surgery and a special care baby unit.

Councillor Eade is now calling for a similar model to be introduced in Shropshire, saying that better outcomes have been achieved for patients in Northumbria despite an increase in average journey times to hospital. He said the scheme could help save millions of pounds.

He added: “In fact the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is currently rated as outstanding, something never achieved by our services in Shropshire. Although building costs have increased since 2005, the location and provision of such a specialist centre in-between the Princess Royal Hospital and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital may fall well below the £311 million price tag currently allocated to existing proposals.”

“The Northumbria model would also ensure that both of Shropshire’s general hospitals would be retained and continue to offer vital health care to their respective communities.

“It is very clear to us that Northumbria’s state of the art specialist emergency care centre, supported by general and community hospitals, is a sensible way forward and one which would serve the communities of Shropshire and Mid Wales much better than the Future Fit model currently before us.”

“However by comparison, all we have seen is a divided Shropshire where communities have been pitted against each other. Working relationships and would-be partnerships have become fractured and possibly damaged beyond repair.

“Acrimonious exchanges and threats of court action are not the way to deal with such an important issue as our healthcare.

“We should take a leaf out of Northumbria’s book which received support from local politicians, councils, and existing hospitals before launching what was an extremely successful consultation with their respective communities.”

He said the scheme could also reduce the average length of stay for emergency admissions.

Earlier this month, Shropshire’s Clinical Commissioning Group and its Telford & Wrekin counterparts signed off on Future Fit’s “pre-consultation business case” and consultation documents, which will be used to ask the public what they think. NHS England has now been asked to validate the documents, a process expected to take about two weeks, then the public will finally get the long-awaited opportunity to make their own comments on the proposals from early December.

The preferred option agreed by the CCGs involves a single A&E unit at RSH and moving the consultant-led women and children unit to Shrewsbury.

Last week, fresh calls were made to axe the Future Fit process by Gill George, from Shropshire Defend Our NHS.

But Dr Julian Povey, chairman of Shropshire CCG, said stopping it now would cause “chaos”, accelerate problems and make NHS targets harder to reach.