Third of changes at Shrewsbury and Telford hospitals already completed, says interim health boss

Paula Clark, who started in her new role at the Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) on Monday, said about half of the recommendations of its latest care quality commission (CQC) report were well under way, and that most of them were on track.

Mrs Clark said she expected to be acting chief executive for a few months while a permanent replacement is found.

"It's difficult to say how long, because the organisation has to go out and recruit," she said.

"Getting a replacement is a big priority, because what the organisation needs is some permanency. There's some big programmes to see through here – there's the maternity review, Future Fit. There's some big pieces of work to take forward, and when you've got somebody permanent you can do that."

Mrs Clark, who is the former chief executive at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, said everybody within SaTH was keen to get it back on track.

"A third of those recommendations in the CQC report have already been put into place and have been signed off. About half of them are well under way and most of them are on track. That's really good progress to get out of special measures, and that's what everybody wants to see. Everybody is very enthusiastic about moving the organisation forward to get out of special measures and to give the population confidence that these things have been tackled."

She said Future Fit was still important, and that similar schemes had been success elsewhere in the country.

Under the plans, the county's emergency centre will be based in Shrewsbury while Telford's Princess Royal Hospital will take over responsibility for planned care.

Future

The £312 million scheme will mean there will be walk-in urgent care centres at both Shrewsbury and Telford and consultant-led women and children's services will be based at Shrewsbury.

"It is really important that if the organisation is looking forward into the future that we think about what is the best configuration of the services for the population," Mrs Clark said.

"Centralising services has shown itself to be the way forward throughout the NHS in the country. That's what has been shown to work in other places, and would work here in Shropshire.

"If you look at the wider configuration in this part of the world, you have Wolverhampton, you have Stoke as a major trauma centre in the north, and then you have the Welsh borders. It makes sense to think about travel times from the more rural areas and how accessible the other centres around us are."

Hundreds of new cases were added to a review of maternity services at Shropshire's major hospitals.

The review was sparked by Richard and Rhiannon Stanton Davies and Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths writing to the Health Secretary to outline concerns over 23 instances of poor care, and a “cluster” of nine baby deaths at the trust, but since then many more cases of poor care have been added to the review.

Mrs Clark said many improvements have already been put into place.

"The trust has already been acting on some of the outputs from the reviews that have taken place," she said.

"What we want to do is offer the very best care to moms and babies so they have confidence to come and have their babies here and have their tiny neo-natal babies here.

Winter

"I have confidence that the organisation is taking it extremely seriously and acting on the things that need to be done."

Another important item on Mrs Clark's agenda during her time at SaTH will be planning for the winter months.

"There's sunshine and lovely blue sky, but we know the winter will be on us before we know it," she said. "We know there's flu in the southern hemisphere that we need to be looking out for. Over the next few weeks we'll be planning so we can go into winter in the best shape we possibly can."

Mrs Clark spent her 20s working in pharmaceuticals and joined the NHS in her 30s. She has been working for the NHS for 27 years.

"It has been a priviledge to work for the NHS," she said. "That's one of the reasons I have come out of retirement – I love the NHS. I believe it's something we should treasure in this country.

"The biggest challenge of all is workforce and getting the right skilled staff in the right numbers. It's good that we're training more doctors, nurses, therapists and back office people, because we need everybody in the NHS and it is a scarce workforce."

Mrs Clark said her first impression of the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital was a good one.

"I have been so warmly welcomed – just from walking about the corridors it has a lovely feel to it, which I think is so important in an organisation. if it feels welcoming and feels comfortable for patients to come into. That's half the battle."