Future Fit: County hospital plan in turmoil as Shropshire and Telford CCGs split

An extraordinary meeting of the two groups was held at Shrewsbury Town Football Club on Tuesday night to decide whether to support the strategic outline case for the Future Fit programme, which effectively sets out the framework for which services will be kept at either Royal Shrewsbury Hospital or Princess Royal Hospital Telford, including accident and emergency units.

After a heated public question session both groups were asked to vote on whether they backed a draft letter of support for the strategic outline case, with Shropshire voting against and Telford and Wrekin voting for.

It came after Dr Ian Rummens of Shropshire Local Medical Committee, a group which represents the county's GPs, said they could not back the strategic outline case.

Speaking after the meeting, David Evans, accountable officer of both clinical commissioning groups, said he was still confident Future Fit would progress, but that discussions would be needed to find a way to overcome the concerns of the public and local GPs.

He said: "The West Midlands Clinical Senate said current service provision is unsustainable, the acute trust says it is unsustainable, broadly speaking the CCGs have said that so no change is not an option.

"What we need to do is go back to the Future Fit Programme Board on Thursday and discuss how we can listen to some of the views expressed by the primary care and communities and work on a way forward."

Mr Evans dismissed suggestions from representatives of Shropshire Defend our NHS that the vote had been down to the likelihood of Telford retaining A&E services, and said the concern had been over care that is transferred from hospitals to the GPs and the community.

He said: "I think what I heard is that the concerns are about the transfer of activity from acute care into the community and primary care, and ensuring that does not place an additional burden on primary and community services without resources available to support that."

Asked where the vote left the Future Fit plans, Mr Evans said: "I really think we need to have a discussion at the programme board next Thursday as to what the next steps are to come up with a solution that will be accepted by the governing bodies of the CCGs and primary care, and also incorporates the views of the public."

The timescale set out for Future Fit is also now likely to slip, with Debbie Vogler, the programme's transformation director, telling the audience that the strategic outline case would need to be submitted in the next two weeks to avoid delays to the programme.

Earlier the meeting had been stopped for some time while campaigners approached members of the board and urged them to not to support the letter.

Dr Rummens had also said the Local Medical Committee would not be supporting the draft letter.

He said: "We cannot believe the reorganisation of hospitals as envisaged will not transfer a significant proportion of work into the community with no evidence resources will follow."