Public Consultation on Shropshire NHS Reform.

I’ve known for about 40 years that the populations of Shropshire and Mid Wales cannot sustain two large District General Hospitals in the long term. 40 yrs ago, an old ld squash friend of mine, Dr Paul Brown (who was also a top consultant in Shropshire) explained why very clearly. He was far seeing and absolutely right. Tragically Paul died young. Today there is a Paul Brown Department at the Princess Royal in Telford.
I’ve been closely involved in the discussion about structural reform of the major hospitals serving Shropshire and Mid Wales for about 20 years. While it would have been best to build a new hospital on a green field site to replace the two hospitals currently located at Telford and Shrewsbury, it has proved to be too costly - about £600 million. So the only way practical forward is to merge the Royal Shrewsbury and the Princess Royal, running them as one hospital, but on two sites. The two Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) serving Shropshire, who decide on future structure agreed this a few years ago and set up a body known as the ‘Future Fit Programme Board’ to consider the matter in detail and make a recommendation on the way forward. After investing more than 3yrs and £2million it finally agreed (after much angst) to recommend that ‘emergency care services’ should be located at Shrewsbury and ‘Planned Care’ should be located at Telford. In the end, following much argument, it was a unanimous recommendation by both CCGs. The public meeting where it was decided was noisy and angry. This ‘preferred option’ includes the transfer of the most serious cases of maternity trauma from Telford to Shrewsbury as well.
In order for this ‘preferred option’ to proceed, the UK Government (NHS England) has to agree the budget needed for the capital works - about £200 million. I expect this to be agreed. There also has to be a public consultation, the details of which we do not yet know. What I expect is that it will be of 14 weeks duration, beginning sometime in November. The statutory requirement is that it be of 12 weeks. Also, we don’t know how many options will be put before the public. It will probably be 2, but could be 3. But the key factor is that there will be a ‘preferred option’ - which is that Emergency Care should be located at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. This is very important to Mid Wales. It’s been a long and tough battle.
It would be easy to think that since there is now a ‘preferred option’ that the debate is all over. Such an attitude would be a serious mistake. It’s vital that the people of Mid Wales respond to the public consultation by making their opinions known. When we know the precise date when the consultation period begins, and the precise options before us also I hope thousands of Montgomeryshire residents will respond. It will be vital that we all write individual letters.
Reform of the secondary care system which serves Shropshire and much of Mid Wales, including most of Montgomeryshire, is perhaps the most dominating issue throughout my years as an Assembly Member and Member of Parliament. It has certainly been the most important issue for my constituents. Over the 12 or 14 weeks of the public consultation, I will be holding one or two meetings every week throughout the constituency, where there will 2/3 of us present to help with letter writing etc. The County Times has assured me that it will help publicise this campaign. We need to make sure that there is no complacency or distraction from our objective, which is to have our new ‘Emergency Care Centre’ built at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.