Future Fit: Fight to keep Telford A&E starts here, says council
People in Telford were today urged to back a new campaign to save the town’s hospital A&E department.
Telford & Wrekin Council says its NHS4All campaign will explain why Telford should be the base for Shropshire’s main emergency department.
The first public event for Future Fit will be held in Telford tomorrow as part of a 14-week consultation on Shropshire’s hospital care.
Health bosses are recommending that a single emergency department for the county should be based at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
But Telford & Wrekin Council’s leader Shaun Davies is calling on people to back a second option, which would site the county’s main emergency department at the town’s Princess Royal Hospital.
He says it offers the best value for money and would leave tens of millions of pounds spare to spend on extra doctors and nurses.
Under the plans, the hospital that does not house the county’s emergency department would take on responsibility for providing planned care.
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Both hospitals would have an urgent care centre that would be open 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week.
Health bosses say that consultant-led women and children’s services would have to be on the same site as the emergency department.
NHS4All follows on from Telford & Wrekin Council’s PRH4Me campaign, which launched in March 2016 and attracted more than 33,000 pledges of support.
Councillor Davies said: “Future Fit divides communities, involves a damaging and discredited PFI deal and will cost generations to come millions of pounds in repayment charges.
“We do not accept the preferred option which would see PRH lose its new £28 million consultant-led Women and Children’s Centre, which opened four years ago based on clinical need, and its full 24-hour A&E.
“We say the consultation’s option two gives everyone the best possible services.
“It will retain at PRH vital services such as the Women and Children’s Centre that Telford and east Shropshire need.
“Two thirds of all children and pregnant women admitted to hospital live nearer to the PRH.
“It will provide the rest of Shropshire and our neighbours in Mid Wales with Shrewsbury as a more accessible place for their planned operations. More than half of people having planned operations live nearer to the RSH.
“Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and Mid Wales have been told it has £312 million to spend on hospitals. Our preferred option will cost the NHS a massive £63 million less.
“Just think of what else the NHS could get for that. They could spend it on a second state-of-the-art cancer centre.”
Councillor Davies claimed Telford’s preferred option would give the NHS at least an extra £3.3 million each year for doctors and nurses.
He added: “We believe option two will give the best health service for everybody and the most for the £312 million Future Fit funding.”
The first public exhibition, giving people the chance to talk to clinicians about the plans, will happen at Meeting Point House in Telford tomorrow between 3.30pm and 7.30pm.
