Future Fit: Battle lines drawn as Shropshire's returning MPs put health at top of agenda

With the dust barely settled following the General Election, MPs vowed to fight for their residents over Future Fit.

Lucy Allan, Telford’s MP, is set to continue her campaign to save the Princess Royal Hospital’s A&E and Women’s and Children’s Unit.

But Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski has said his main priority was to work with fellow representatives in Ludlow and North Shropshire to ensure Future Fit was carried out, and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital becomes the county’s main A&E.

Under Future Fit, Princess Royal Hospital’s A&E is set to be downgraded to an A&E Local, although the full details of which services will be offered have yet to be revealed.

An investment of £312 million would come to the county as part of the Future Fit project.

See also:

• Full General Election round-up

• Landslide: Clean sweep for Shropshire Tories as they score increased majority in every seat

• Telford - Lucy Allan increases majority by more than 10,000 to mock tight predictions

• The Wrekin - Huge majority as Mark Pritchard retains seat for Tories

• Shrewsbury & Atcham - Daniel Kawczynski retains his seat for the Tories

• North Shropshire - Tory Owen Paterson wins a seventh term

• Ludlow - Philip Dunne increases Tory majority in ultra-safe seat

• Montgomeryshire - Landslide as Craig Williams holds seat for Conservatives

It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson renewed his pledge to make the NHS his top priority, promising to increase the amount of nurses and GPs and build 40 new hospitals.

Ms Allan said: “Future Fit must address the issues of health inequalities and health outcomes as well as the rapid increase in Telford’s population over last six years that Future Fit has been under consideration. Any plan for hospital improvements must cater for our town’s projected population growth.”

Mr Kawczynski said: “More funding for the NHS needs to be secured and delivered with the Future Fit programme. I am going to be working very hard now and not let the 300 doctors who have worked so hard and secured this project down.”

Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow, said: “I hope we can put the political argy-bargy to one side and move forward to create state-of-the-art healthcare facilities. It is really important that we progress on that in a speedy fashion.”

Elsewhere, Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard took to Twitter to thank those who voted for him.

“Thank you to the people of The Wrekin for once again electing me to the House of Commons,” he said. “Let’s get Brexit done and get onto focusing on the people’s priorities of the NHS, schools and policing."

All Shropshire seats benefitted from what Mr Johnson called a political “earthquake”, which saw Labour support crumble in the face of a Tory landslide.

The Conservatives retained all five of their seats in Shropshire as well as Montgomeryshire.

Mr Johnson said: “We have to grapple with the consequences of that, we have to change our own party, we have to rise to the level of events, we must answer the challenge that the British people have given us.”