Shropshire Star

NHS in Shropshire special report: Row over A&E echoes previous showdown

Shropshire isn't the only region where passions run high over the issue of accident and emergency departments.

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Those embroiled in the debate should cast their eye just a few miles south to the town of Kidderminster.

Telford is predicted by many, particularly Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski, as the town that will miss out when it comes to axing one of the county's two A&E departments.

The arguments being thrown around Shropshire now are similar to those in Worcestershire towards the end of the 1990s.

It is now 15 years since the closure of Kidderminster's accident and emergency department and the scars still run deep.

Only last month, mother of twins Connie Rutter and call centre supervisor Chris Edwards launched a petition calling for the unit to be reinstated, quickly attracting more than 2,500 signatures.

"Within 12 hours we had received around 1,000 signatures which shows the strength of feeling," says Mr Edwards, who was just five years old when the plans were first announced in 1997.

"With the closure or removal of services of other hospitals within the Worcestershire area, this has added enormous pressure on to Worcestershire Royal, long A&E delays, lack of beds and poor employee satisfaction."

Medics, politicians and the general public alike were stunned when the former Worcestershire Health Authority dropped the bombshell 18 years ago.

The plan was not dissimilar to the one being considered for Shropshire today.

Health bosses argued that the focus on accident and emergency services should be at a new unit in Worcester.

It led to David Lock, one of the rising stars of Tony Blair's new Labour government, losing his seat after just one term, being replaced by retired hospital consultant Richard Taylor, who stood on a Kidderminster Hospital ticket.

Those affected by the closure of A&E in Kidderminster said people in Shropshire should be prepared for a decision that will lead to very clear winners and losers.

"I can think of two cases where almost certainly the person would not have died if they had an A&E here," said Dr Taylor in an interview three years ago.

One of them, he said, was a seven-year-old boy and the other a man who had a cardiac arrest in the ambulance as it drove past Kidderminster Hospital.

Dr Taylor also recalls a case where a couple, discharged from hospital late at night, were picked up by police walking along the M5. They were trying to make their way home to Kidderminster and got lost.

The saga began when a deal was signed in 1996 to build a new hospital in Worcester under a private finance initiative (PFI) as a specialist centre.

No mention was made of other hospitals in the area at the time, although Alan Milburn, the shadow health secretary at the time, voiced concerns that NHS managers in the Worcestershire were planning a review.

However, the Government had spent £25 million on Kidderminster Hospital, which many saw as a reassurance of its long-term future.

However, the following year the newly formed Worcestershire Health Authority put out a consultation document suggesting that Kidderminster Hospital should be reduced in size, with all its acute beds moving to the new hospital in Worcester.

Within a month of the plan breaking cover, 5,000 people took part in a protest march, and a 66,000-signature petition was handed in to the health authority.

A second protest, after the health authority published its recommendations, attracted 12,000 people, and a Mori opinion poll reported that 97 per cent of the town's population were against the proposals.

But it was not just in Kidderminster where people became alarmed.

In south Shropshire, 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the plans to be dropped, and Christopher Gill, who was at the time the Conservative MP for Ludlow, called for a debate in the House of Commons.

The news also led to a new political party, Health Concern, taking seats in South Shropshire and Bridgnorth district councils in 1999, as well as forming the official opposition in Wyre Forest.

During a fiery exchange in the Commons, Mr Gill accused then health secretary Frank Dobson of ignoring the people of North Worcestershire and South Shropshire, and accused the new Worcestershire Health Authority of showing a bias for people in the south of the county.

"Worcestershire health authority has a preponderance of representatives from the south and east of Worcestershire, who have clearly voted against the minority of representatives from the north-west of the county, where the Kidderminster hospital is," said Mr Gill.

He also challenged claims that the closure would save the NHS £4 million a year, saying the finance director at Kidderminster had said it would only save £300,000.

Health minister John Hutton replied that there would continue to be a 24-hour consultant-led operation at the hospital, and that he would happily go to Kidderminster to explain the situation.

Echoing the proposals in the Future Fit programme, Mr Hutton said: "Kidderminster will continue to have a consultant-led emergency service.

"Major trauma cases will no longer go to Kidderminster and the emphasis there will be on care provided by nurses, backed up by an effective telemedicine link to the county-wide A & E service.

"However, the designated consultant will be responsible for training and clinical standards at the new emergency centre at Kidderminster, and will spend a substantial proportion of his or her time at the hospital."

Mr Hutton estimated that about half the patients who had used Kidderminster's A & E department would continue to use the new emergency centre, but said that figure did not take into account the expected advances in telephone medical services.

Ironically, given the present debate, Dr Taylor wrote to Mr Lock arguing that Kidderminster Hospital served a bigger catchment area than either Shrewsbury or Telford.

He said: "We must retain a blue light ambulance service at Kidderminster for the 109,000 people who reside in north west Worcestershire and a population within 10 miles far greater than those within 10 miles of either Shrewsbury or Telford."

In May 2000, Health Concern took control of Wyre Forest District Council, and threatened legal action to prevent the closure. However, the threat of an injunction sparked an angry reaction from two senior medics at the hospital, who warned that patients could die if campaigners delayed the plans.

In a joint statement, Dr Umesh Udeshi, who had served as consultant radiologist at the Kidderminster hospital for 12 years, and Dr Charles Ashton, said they were dismayed by Wyre Forest Council's announcement that it was taking legal advice on the possibility of an injunction.

The legal action was dropped, and the A & E unit shut its doors on September 18 that year, a day which campaigners dubbed Black Monday.

However, the anger didn't go away.

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