Shropshire Star

Stroke services return to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital

Stroke services have returned to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, as the hospital has hired a new consultant.

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Royal Shrewsbury Hospital

However, health bosses have not ruled out the potential of it closing again, saying some staff felt they were "better able to deliver" their service at one site.

In June, it was revealed that stroke services would temporarily be based at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.

One of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust's four acute stroke physicians left his post and health bosses were unable to recruit anyone to replace him.

Officials said in order to maintain specialised stroke services in the county, they temporarily based the three remaining acute stroke physicians at Telford's hospital.

The closure sparked a petition by councillors in Mid Wales, who said people could die or suffer serious ill health if they had to get to the Princess Royal Hospital – an extra 20 minutes journey time from Powys.

Debbie Kadum, chief operating officer of the trust, said a new member of staff had now been recruited, and that the service had reopened.

She said that the trust had received no complaints about the service while it had been based at the Princess Royal Hospital but there has been work undertaken to look into the way the closure was communicated to staff.

Chief executive Simon Wright said: "There were errors in communication. In an effort to progress to a solution, communication broke down.

"At one point staff were receiving different messages on an almost daily basis.

"There have been some hard lessons learned."

However, Mr Wright said there may be discussions in the future about basing stroke services at one hospital site.

He said there may be discussions in future with clinicians about the best way to run the service, but that now was not the time for those to be had, referencing the ongoing Future Fit proposals to reorganise hospital services in Shropshire.

He said: "The team felt they were better able to deliver the service on one site but we moved it back as agreed.

"We said we would so we did that in good faith.

"With all the significant changes going on at the moment it wouldn't be sensible to change any services in advance of that."

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