Health chiefs have concluded downgrading the Princess Royal Hospital and transferring some accident and emergency and other acute services to the Royal Shrewsbury is the best option for the immediate future, it emerged today.

The move was exclusively revealed in the Shropshire Star on Tuesday.

It would see the PRH lose A&E for severe trauma cases, along with acute and vascular surgery, as well as in-patient paediatrics.

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Members of NHS Telford & Wrekin, the Shropshire County PCT and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust will consider the change over the next fortnight.

Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard today said he would raise the plight of the PRH with Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham, adding: “This is literally a fight for life.”

And Telford MP David Wright pledged to fight the proposals “tooth and nail”.

The recommendation has come from a clinical leaders forum of top doctors and nurses that has spent the last 18 months looking at ways of shaking up the county’s hospitals in an effort to combat intense pressure on services.

It has also recommended the long-term goal of concentrating acute services on one site by 2020, be it at the RSH, the PRH or a brand new hospital.

The forum’s conclusions on what should be done in the shorter term, however, says that Option 1 of transferring some acute services from the PRH to the RSH by 2012/13 “ranks the highest on both a financial and non-financial basis”.

Dr Steve Evans, medical director of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said such a transfer would cost £18 million whereas Option 2, to shift services from RSH to PRH, would cost £47 million.

He said if board members approve the transfer to RSH a three-month public consultation is likely to start in November.

They are also being asked to note that backing the move will still leave all three options open for provision on a single site from 2020. If the transfer to RSH is approved, public consultation over the options for provision of acute services on a single site are likely to begin in 2011.

By Simon Hardy