A LEADING GP today claimed he had been gagged to prevent him voicing his concerns over the future of Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital.

Dr Andy Inglis has quit the board of Telford’s health body in protest.

He has also resigned as chairman of the primary care trust’s influential professional executive committee.

He claims his position became untenable after being told by PCT chairman Brian Taylor that he could not contact the West Midlands strategic health authority to raise his concerns.

Dr Inglis said various proposals for a review of services were shared at a briefing on Tuesday without GPs being spoken to and with only “selective engagement” of hospital doctors.

He said that if those developing the healthcare proposals did not fully engage with doctors, they risked coming up with plans that would be “shot down”.

Dr Inglis, who is based at the Sutton Hill Medical Practice, has been vocal in his opposition to the planned changes – which many fear will lead to a downgrading of the PRH – previously describing them as a “toxic sandwich”.

The plans are being reconsidered by the county’s health trusts in light of an expected NHS funding squeeze.

Dr Inglis said in an e-mail to senior GPs and practice managers: “I believe that suggesting I cannot contact the SHA to voice my concerns renders my position untenable.

“I expressed concern that the lessons of last autumn’s public meetings on reconfiguration were not learnt, when the programme board made decisions without the clinical leaders forum support. This led to local vascular surgeons, general surgeons, physicians, orthopaedic surgeons and local GPs in public voicing their concerns over the proposals for secondary care that appeared to erode the role of PRH.”

Simon Conolly, chief executive of NHS Telford and Wrekin, said: “We are absolutely committed to clinical engagement in all processes of redesign of services.

“We want to move forward with both acute clinicians and GPs and all their clinical colleagues, helping us to agree on the best locations for services to be provided.

“We are saddened by Dr Inglis’ decision to leave the board.

By Health Correspondent Dave Morris