Shropshire hospital bosses appoint first A&E consultant in five years

Simon Wright, chief executive of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), said several people had applied to be consultants following recent job adverts.

The appointment was made on Monday and further interviews with potential candidates will be carried out in the next few weeks.

Mr Wright said there had a been a lack of interest to previous job adverts, but things were starting to look more positive.

He believes it could be down to news of the funding being secured to take the Future Fit programme forward.

In March, the Government confirmed more than £300 million of investment for the reconfiguration of the county’s two main hospitals, paving the way for a public consultation to begin.

Mr Wright said: “We are now moving towards public consultation around the Future Fit recommendations. That’s great. We’ve waited a long time.”

He said the Future Fit board would be finalising the launch date for the public consultation in the next couple of weeks.

While the process has been ongoing, the trust has been advertising for A&E consultants and its latest job adverts have attracted interest.

Mr Wright said: “We’ve had a number of people apply. We will be interviewing over the next few weeks.

“The only reason they have applied is because we have the money to progress the Future Fit solution.”

Before Monday's appointment, he said A&E consultants had not been appointed by the trust in more than five years.

The trust has faced considerable workforce challenges and has had to rely on support from locum doctors.

There has been widespread concern that SaTH could activate a plan to close the accident and emergency department at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) overnight, for up to two weeks, due to the pressures.

Health bosses have cited it will only be done if the situation becomes unsafe.

The news of a possible closure followed the resignation of a consultant, placing additional pressure on the existing workforce.

A report to SaTH’s board, which meets tomorrow, says there is still a “substantial risk” that the trust will be unable to safely manage two emergency departments overnight.

It says the “robustness” of its contingency plan is being tested.

Mr Wright believes the planned shake-up of services, under Future Fit, will help solve workforce issues and reduce the need to cancel planned operations, due to the proposed separation of emergency and planned care.

A public consultation on the plans, featuring two options, is expected to launch later this month.

The preferred Future Fit option which has been put forward by Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin clinical commissioning groups includes siting the county’s emergency department at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH).

Under that model, PRH would take on responsibility for providing planned care.

The second option would be for PRH to house Shropshire’s emergency department and for RSH to become the planned care site.

Both hospitals would have an urgent care centre.