MP Kawczynski airs hospital services debate in Parliament
Tuesday 1st February 2011, 2:03PM GMT.
The battle to stop children and maternity services being moved from Shrewsbury to Telford reached Parliament today as Shrewsbury’s MP called for the heat to be taken out of the debate.
Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski told MPs there were “extreme levels of concern” among his constituents about the proposals.
He demanded clinical evidence to prove the changes were necessary and argued the plans also needed the support of family doctors, clinicians and health professionals.
The Tory MP plans to write to all GPs in Shropshire to gauge their views.
A public consultation is currently under way on plans which would see women’s and children’s services concentrated at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital and acute inpatient abdominal surgery at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
Mr Kawczynski told a Commons debate: “I wouldn’t wish a reconfiguration of maternity services on my worst enemy.
“People expect maternity services to be ever closer not further away.
“We are hoping and expecting those maternity services will stay in Shrewsbury and will not be moved to Telford.”
Health Minister Anne Milton agreed to meet the MP and a delegation of constituents to discuss the plan.
Earlier today Mr Kawczynski said it was important people in Shrewsbury and Telford had the right to oppose the plans but claimed he did not want the issue to develop into a “tug of war” between opposing sides.
Mr Kawczynski, who also called on the media to avoid sensationalising the hospitals row, said: “I am very conscious that we must take the heat out of this Shrewsbury/Telford debate.”
He called for all sides to show each other “high levels” of courtesy and respect.
Telford & Wrekin Council leader Andrew Eade said it was important to safeguard acute services in the county.
He said: “We must come together to fight to keep services in the Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin area and ensure we have services divided equitably between the two hospitals, including maintaining full A&E services on both sites.”
By Sunita Patel and Russell Roberts
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At last someone looking at this with a logical head. It is time to question the facts and figures of this proposal from top to bottom.
I just wish the rest of the Shropshire MPs would come to the table, I have written to asked if Philip Dunne MP for Ludlow will be attending the public meeting at the community centre in Craven Arms ( 7pm on the 9th of February), but I have not yet received a reply.
Where are our local councillors? I have not seen or heard much from them so far. We hear plenty from them when they are looking for our votes!
This Trust is a Public Private partnership, there are commercial implications within this proposal, no private company is going to invest in this project without getting the biggest return that it can out of this. We have to be fighting our side of this to make sure we will be getting the best value from any changes that we can. I just do not think there has been anything like enough enquiry so far into the finances of this proposal, we should not just take the trusts word that this is the “only option” that we have.
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I think it is worth highlighting the contrast in possible admissions at the two sites. Adding all the current admissions to the Telford Hospital for the year 2009-2010 including children and maternity cases – comprising 17111 medical emergencies, 496 births, 3330 surgical cases, 3081 elective admissions and 3481 children – make a total of 27499 admissions.
Similar figures for Shrewsbury DGH for the same period – amount to 22679 medical emergencies, 1455 + 454 births, 4107 surgical cases, 5438 elective admissions and 3972 children – makes a total of 40511.
I also fear that it will be impossible to retain the skilled staff currently working in the Shrewsbury DGH, since many will not be prepared to move to work in the Telford hospital. That would undermine the quality of NHS services throughout the entire county. Many of them are irreplaceable in the short-term and may even be impossible to replace. This could apply to all levels of staffing, from porter to consultant to midwife.
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A recent medical graduate shared that Shropshire is at the bottom of the wish list for placement when going through the medical recruitment scheme as there’s ‘nothing interesting medically’, by that I assume they meant in terms of speciality, and also the system links Shropshire and Staffordshire together!
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the RSH’s fertility centre is obviously doing something right as it achieved the highest rate of IVF conceptions in the West Midlands – ‘medically interesting’ in my opinion, especially in the context of this debate.
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I think that the point made in comment 3 is at the heart of the matter. As the low number of complex cases seen in women’s and children’s services in Shropshire are currently split between two sites, doctors at each hospital are not getting enough experience of these cases to keep their medical training updated and therefore it is getting difficult to recruit the best people. Putting all the specialisms on one site would help this situation. Uncomplicated cases would still be treated at each hospital as far as I am aware. Mums will still be able to have their baby’s in Shrewsbury and straightforward children’s proceedures will still happen there.
With the government giving GPs the power to choose where to send patients for treatment (and spend NHS money)unless one hospital in Shropshire has a first class women’s and children’s service that NHS money will go to private healthcare or out of the county. I fear then that these services will disappear from both hospitals.
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Perhaps Mr Kawczynski could tell us who put the ‘heat’ into the debate in the first place?
One clue – it could be the person who urged an ‘aggressive fight’ for RHS services…..and that Telford was ‘secondary’ to the county town.
Perhaps he should just calm down and review his own comments on this matter before accusing others of being ‘selfish’?
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Apart from the fact that the move to Telford is almost a move OUT of Shropshire. How are they going to get skilled, experienced staff to work at the Telford site? Telford is not a very appealing place and has a very high crime rate. Why would anyone want to move their family there. And before anyone shouts at me because they live there and love the place, it’s about how others from outside the area see it.
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Regarding cime figures, it may be worth at least looking at the new crime map – Shrewsbury isn’t quite as rosy as you may think compared to Telford (although never let the facts get in the way of ‘how people see it’)
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Shrewsbury is not a very appealing place and has a very high crime rate. Why would anyone want to move their family there? And before anyone shouts at me because they live there and love the place, it’s about how others from outside the area see it.
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Now you are being silly. As a visitor these two towns are so very different. Telford seems to be the butt of many jokes, Jimmy Carr having told a few recently. Shrewsbury is far from perfect, but it offers so much more. It has a town centre for one, not a shopping mall. I can see why doctors and other medical workers would rather live and work in Shrewsbury. But even without that side of the argument, Shrewsbury hospital is in the middle, Telford isnt.
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Oh yes, a town centre crippled by poor traffic management and congestion; it is so bad that it is quicker to get to the PRH from Sundorne than it is to get to the RSH.
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Sorry I forgot Telford has no traffic problems. From sundorne, if it’s during rush hour when traffic along smithfield road is busy, I would go through fitz, a 10 to 15 min journey. Or I get on the ring road, again 15 mins tops. Your only interest in this debate is to put Shrewsbury down. Sounds like jealousy to me.
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Although it is perfectly acceptable to put Telford down and judge 150,000 people.
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I am sure that we will all sign petitions, march and protest, and the result will be that in a few years time for anything more than a hangnail, we will be travelling to Wolverhampton, Stafford and Birmingham.
Has anyone seen the state of the maternity unit at Shrewsbury? It should be demolished, the sooner the better.
The proposals are trying to make the best of a bad job in that there are not enough people around to warrent one hospital, let alone two given the increasing expense and sophistication of treatments, and specialisation in staff.
And don’t start the “why dont we build one new hospital and sell off the two old ones to pay for it”. The arguments about WHERE it would be built would not be over until the next century!
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After speaking with staff from the RHS maternity unit only yesterday, they told me that the unit is not as bad as is being made out. If you want to see a maternity unit that is under funded and in poor repair you should take a look at the ludlow unit. I know they are supposedly going to build a new unit to replace it but they keep putting the date for that back again and again. That unit should have been sorted out 10 years ago.
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The public consulation meetings i’ve attended have not been very informative. I feel the trust are skirting around the issues instead of giving us direct answers.
If the trust thinks the people of Oswestry and Mid Wales will travel to Telford to use the paediatric and midwifery services, i think they will be sadly mistaken. The idea of the move providing super services with more specialised staff is just not true. Heaven forbid, but if my child was to become ill and required medical attention i would not be taking them to the PRH hospital i would be taking them to the Wrexham Maelor, which would be closer.
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The closure of these services in Shrewsbury will be terrible for so many families around Shropshire. Getting to Telford is a complicated and stressful journey from most parts of of the county. Telford is one round about after another.
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I have just read through these comments, some are people having a go at others, some are statistics, not a lot about real life, real people & the people any kind of move is going to affect.
2001 my son Lewis was born with an undetected heart defect, up until he was five days old my pregnancy and birth with him had been treated as normal. This in itself worries me as i hear Shrewsbury maternity is to deal with just non problem pregnancies, many like that of my sons are none problem purely because the problem is undetected until after birth. Going back to my son he collapsed at home at five days of age, luckily our wonderful midwife was at our home. He was bluelighted to the royal shrewsbury getting there with seconds to spare. This is no exageration as his body was in total shutdown. Had it not been for the expertise of doctors on neo natal my son would have died that day.
Had this ridiculous proposal already been in force, there would be no doubt my son would NOT have survived the journey from Shrewsbury to Telford. We sadly lost our son in 2004 aged two years, losing him so young was & is a pain which never leaves us. But had this proposal been in force we would have definatly lost him at five days. Obviously i wish i still had my son but at least two years is better than five days. My sons case is not unique, other children’s lifes will be at risk if this move goes ahead.
The M54 was closed the other day, a bad accident had occured, what if an ambulance was waiting to go that way?? yes there are other routes but they are longer, & what if its in rush hour, bank holidays? a trip to Telford will cost the lifes of the littles ones needing urgent emergency attention. I feel both Telford and Shrewsbury should have hospitals, extend Shrewsbury, raise funds towards it.Shrewsbury rainbow ward & neo natal services are excellent, the staff we have are second to none. You never know when a child in your family will need them, child, grandchild, nephew, neice what will you do when its gone & you may be in the position where you have to travel to Telford every day to visit, I for one will be fighting this move .
karen Prior
http://www.thelewispriorfoundation.org
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