Mid Wales MP fears winter NHS crisis

Montgomeryshire MP Glyn Davies said the failure last week to reach a decision on the future of Shropshire hospitals under the Future Fit reform programme was incredible.

He said reform was absolutely vital, controversial as it would be.

"It looks as if there has been a fundamental disagreement about the way forward," the MP said. "I am told that it is due to the failure of any option to remove the massive unsustainable deficit. But this does not quite wash with me. We have known this to be the case for months.

"My guess is that the can has catastrophically been kicked way down the road because the decision was too tough to take."

Future Fit, the team behind the reorganisation of health services in the county, were hoping to announce their decision on a single A&E unit last week. The decision has been put back because none of the options on the table adequately tackled the growing £23 million deficit of Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

The Future Fit process has cost £2 million without it coming to a firm conclusion.

Options included siting A&E either at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital or at Telford's Princess Royal Hospital, or on a new site between the two. The options also questioned whether the PRH's £28 million women and children's unit should stay put or move to Shrewsbury.

Mr Davies said that the delay would do nothing to ease the deficit.

"I was surprised by this failure," he said. "It's running a huge risk of a winter collapse."

Mr Davies said that it had always been known that reform would meet opposition and said that tough decisions had to be taken.

"It is better to take them in a considered way rather than as a result of a crisis situation," he said. "We are living longer and new drugs and treatments are coming forwards, all of which is expensive. Reform is vital to allow for specialist treatment centres and more complex treatments.

"Inevitably, this will mean tough decisions about travel distances for patients.

"Something has to be done. We all know that each winter addition of extra patients is putting a tremendous pressure on our hospitals. That pressure in increasing year on year. I know last year there was one day when the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital had to cancel all elective surgery to cope with the number of emergency cases."

Mr Davies said it was not the expense of the Future Fit consultation that worried him.

"It is not the money, it is the simply failure not to reach a decision," he said.