Shropshire risks losing vital surgery facilities if a row rumbles on between Shrewsbury and Telford over the proposals to safeguard hospital services, it was claimed today.

Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury, said the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority was urging the two towns to work together and present a united front in a bid to protect services.

Mr Kawczynski held a meeting with top officials at the authority earlier this week over the issue and their comments echo ones he made last month, when he said the county must work together on the issue.

The comments come just over a year after Tom Taylor, chief executive of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, warned children’s in-patient services could be lost completely if there was another “enormous row” between the two towns.

Today Mr Kawczynski said: “If the two PCTs can’t reach a decision on this, the decision could be taken out of our hands and vascular services would go to Wolverhampton or something like that. It’s critical the two PCTs come to an agreement.”

The calls come after a health report recommended having the county’s acute services on a single site from 2020, be it at the Princess Royal, Royal Shrewsbury or at a new hospital.

The report proposes moving the more serious accident and emergency cases, acute and vascular surgery and in-patient paediatrics, either from the PRH to the RSH or vice versa, with the RSH noted as the preferred option.

Steve Coneys, from the SHA, said that clinicians’ advice at both national and regional level was for major services such as vascular surgery to be concentrated at one site.

He said it was advisable for officials from both towns to comply with the guidance in order to safeguard services for Shropshire as a whole.

Mr Coneys said the final decision would be one for the PCTs at a meeting this month.

David Wright, MP for Telford, said he was hopeful of services being safeguarded at both sites but said his first priority was the hospital within his constituency.

He said: “I think my job is to speak out for the residents of Telford. The PCTs and the hospital trust have got to come up with proposals that will satisfy both communities.”

Mark Pritchard, MP for the Wrekin, said: “Shropshire is a very large county and both Shrewsbury and Telford need fully functioning accident and emergency facilities and that is what I am fighting for.”

By John Kirk