Shropshire health chiefs welcome 'exciting' milestone in Future Fit hospital plans

It emerged over the weekend that much-delayed 'Future Fit' proposals for Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and Princess Royal Hospital Telford (PRH), had reached a major milestone, with the Government and the NHS signing off a key stage in the project – the 'Strategic Outline Case' (SOC).

The development is the most significant step forward in the plans from Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust (SaTH), which manages RSH and PRH, for nearly 12 months.

It paves the way for the trust to submit an outline business case, then a full business case. If both are approved, work on the £312m project could start next year.

A statement from the county's NHS organisations – Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin Integrated Care System (ICS), said the development would allow work to continue on a "vital programme that will transform acute hospital services and improve health and care for communities across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and Mid Wales".

The Future Fit plans, also known as the 'Hospitals Transformation Programme' (HTP), would see a shake-up of what services are offered at each hospital.

RSH would become the site for the county's only full 24-hour A&E, and would also become home to consultant-led women & children's services.

PRH would become the county's centre for planned care, both hospitals will also have urgent care centres, while the Telford site will also have an 'A&E Local'.

According to the ICS the A&E Local would be "staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of health, care and community professionals."

It added: "This is a significant enhancement of urgent care services in Telford and means around two thirds of patients currently treated at Telford’s A&E department will continue to receive the care they need at their most local hospital."

Nicholas White, chief medical officer for NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care System said: “This is an exciting step forward for our overarching vision to improve health and wellbeing across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

“Delivering HTP will play a significant part in enabling our health and care services to meet the needs of our population, now and in the future. This investment will enable us to raise standards, meaning if people do need to access hospital services, they receive the best care possible.”

Dr John Jones, acting executive medical director at SaTH, said: “The Hospitals Transformation Programme represents a model of care that has been designed, led and supported by our clinicians from the outset.

"It will ensure our services are much more resilient, reduce cancellations and delays and ensure patients are seen more rapidly by specialist teams.

“This is a major milestone towards enabling us to deliver better health outcomes and a vastly improved experience of care for our communities.”

Louise Barnett, chief executive at SaTH, added: "This is fantastic news for our communities as it moves us another step closer to delivering the improvements to our hospital services that we so desperately need.

"This new model of care will address major challenges presented by duplicated and fragmented services and ageing infrastructure – issues which have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“HTP supports our vision for our communities to benefit from excellent local services including a modern Emergency Department which provides immediate access to medical and surgical specialities, setting new national standards for the delivery of enhanced urgent care through our A&E Local model in Telford and supporting our long-term ambitions to become a recognised leader in the delivery of day case services.”

In its statement the ICS said that the planned care site at PRH would result in 'fewer cancellations and delays for operations' and 'shorter waiting times for cancer care'.

It added that having one A&E would mean 'patients are seen more quickly by the most appropriate specialist teams', 'patients experience more rapid diagnosis and shorter hospital stays', and 'improved patient flow, with shorter patient waiting times, and faster ambulance handover times'.

Under the plans both hospital sites will also provide a range of assessment and maternity outpatient and scanning services, along with midwife-led birthing units for low risk births.

The ICS added: "This means that the majority of expectant mothers will continue to receive their antenatal and postnatal care at the site closest to home."