Keep units at hospital plea

Paediatric services and Accident and Emergency units should be kept at both Shropshire’s main hospitals, top doctors and nurses from the county’s four NHS trusts have said.

This is believed to be one of the key recommendations of a group which has spent several months drawing up an initial blueprint for healthcare services across Shropshire.

It has spent more than six months looking at how services can be delivered and improved over the next 12 years.

In addition to keeping services for sick children at both the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal hospitals, along with the Accident & Emergency departments, the Clinical Leaders’ Forum is also likely to call for GPs to be given a greater role and for more outpatient clinics to be run from Shropshire’s four community hospitals.

The aim is to provide far more services closer to the homes of patients.

By 2020 the county’s big hospitals could be smaller than they are at present but they will offer more specialist treatments and deal with far more complex cases.

It is felt that much of the work they currently undertake, including clinics, could be undertaken in GP surgeries and community hospital settings.

The Clinical Leaders’ Forum is finalising its report this week and this will be presented on Tuesday to board meetings of the Shropshire County and Telford & Wrekin Primary Care Trusts.

The forum includes clinicians from the two PCTs as well as the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust and the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital Trust at Oswestry.

It has worked under an independent chairman, John MacDonald, who is a highly experienced former NHS chief executive, and has examined eight different areas of healthcare, including end of life services, maternity, paediatrics and long-term conditions.

The Shropshire study has been triggered by the review of the NHS by health minister Lord Darzi.

Lord Darzi’s final report will be published next month.

However, a high-profile feature of his interim report last year was the creation of large health centres bringing together several GPs and specialists and opening for extended hours.

By Health Correspondent Dave Morris