‘I will fight for the best deal’

David Wright said: “The PRH was built in Telford after a long campaign and as someone who has lived here all of my life I am sick and tired of continual reviews of local hospital services.

“I know from family experience how important the PRH is. When I was a teenager, my grandfather, who was from Shifnal, spent nearly a year in hospital. The PRH had not been built in those days and the family had to travel every day to the old Copthorne site at Shrewsbury to visit him.

“This health service review does not threaten to take away our excellent hospital, but it does propose a change in the services delivered from the site and I am going to fight to get the best deal that I can for local people.

“For me, the argument is fairly simple. Proposals from local health bosses must make sense to the communities they serve. Telford is the largest population centre in the county and is over twice the size of Shrewsbury.

“Moreover, Telford is a growing town and it is about time that the consultants and health managers recognised that fact. Telford could easily grow to become a town of 200,000 people in the next two decades and we need hospital services to reflect that fact.

“In Telford & Wrekin, 21 per cent of the population lives in areas classified as deprived, compared with three per cent for the rest of Shropshire. Life expectancy is lower in our part of the county and our public health indicators are worse than the rest of Shropshire.

“Those of us from Telford want the county’s main accident and emergency department to be located at the PRH, along with in-patient children’s services.

“To put it bluntly, services should not be based on how the county looked 50 years ago. They should be based on how it looks now and how it is going to look.

“If that means moving services to focus on Telford, then so be it.

“That is why I say no to any movement of services to Shrewsbury.”

• Say No to Shrewsbury