Shropshire Star comment: New twist in Future Fit saga
This has gone on long enough. Salopians are heartily fed up with the whole thing.
The continuing delays are creating and sustaining a damaging sense of uncertainty.
No, we are not talking about the big Brexit debate. We are talking about the Shropshire equivalent of Brexit, the interminable Future Fit process, in which delays, frustrations, and disagreements are the expected norm.
Future Fit is supposed to be a strategic plan to shape the future of National Health Service health care in the county.
Of the various elements to the plans, the principal one that has proven the Shropshire equivalent of the backstop, in that it has been a roadblock to consensus and agreement, is how and where the county’s accident and emergency services will be provided.
Things, we have been repeatedly told, cannot go on as they are. In other words, Shropshire cannot continue to enjoy double provision, with A&E units at both the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.
To that end, health bosses agreed a few weeks ago to a proposal to have just one A&E centre, and for that centre to be at the RSH. The consultant-led women’s and children’s centre would also move to Shrewsbury, although planned care would come to Telford.
Nobody seriously thought that decision would be the end of it, and so it has proven.
Over to you, then, Mr Hancock. He has been asked to review the decision. It is a call from the Telford side of this divisive local argument for him to intervene.
It is sad that the local decision-making process has become so contentious that it has given rise to this appeal by a council which in normal circumstances would cherish local democracy and deeply resent any ministerial interference.
If Mr Hancock takes his cue from an EU Brexit script, he will now respond: “This is your chaos, and your problem to fix, and not for me.”
And as in Brexit, the public is at the stage of saying: Just get on with it and sort it out.
