NHS bosses in pledge on Ludlow maternity unit

But Simon Wright, chief executive of Shrewsbury and Telford NHS HospitalTrust, stopped short of giving a guarantee that the rural midwife-led unit at Ludlow Hospital would not be cut in the future as he said the unit, along with Bridgnorth and Oswestry, was part of an ongoing wider review of how public money was spent.

Speaking at a public Ludlow Health Forum meeting, chaired by health minister Philip Dunne at Ludlow Assembly Rooms, Mr Wright said it was "entirely normal" for the unit to be among services being looked at, and it didn't mean it would go.

"What we have to look at is what is most appropriate for our population," he said.

He said if it was true Shropshire hospitals were taking every chance they could to close a service, "why would we have gone to the trouble we have to re-open and move the service into the main hospital?

"We have kept it open and moved it in a very short space of time – and I hope that will be seen by some as an act of good faith," he said.

Advice

Alison Hiles, speaking for Save Ludlow Maternity Unit, said the town's midwives offered an essential community service as they had the time to talk to mothers about after care and offer advice.

"We feel strongly that to remove this service is detrimental not just to mums, but to the community as a whole," she said. She said she was due to give birth to her third child and needed to know birthing, antenatal and postnatal services would be available at Ludlow.

Mr Wright assured her: "There are no plans for that unit to be closed on April 1."

When asked if he could guarantee the unit would not close next year, he said: "Decisions about the strategic plan are not going to be made here today.

"It would be wrong for us to take one unit in isolation of other things.

"There has to be a debate that talks about all of our services and the best use of public money. But the process has been designed to answer that."

He said he accepted that the choice of mothers to be able to have a child closer to home was "important".

But he said attendance of such small community hospitals out of mothers' choice was relatively low in terms of the numbers of babies born there.

"We have to, as a community, make sure those services are being used," he said.

He said the current "dispersal model of care" didn't break even and while health bosses had agreed to carry on like that in the past, under the new sustainability and transformation plan they were required to get together, they could no longer do that.

MP – lease wrangle ‘not unique’

Ludlow Hospital is not unique in having a protracted wrangle over its long-term lease, according to Philip Dunne.

The Ludlow MP and health minister said the years-long talks were "frustrating" but part of an attempt to standardise property management rather than agreeing things on an ad-hoc basis.

Vivienne Parry, Shropshire councillor for Ludlow South, said health bosses have been promising a lease was almost finalised for "three years, four years nearly".

The hospital site on Gravel Hill was given to the national NHS Property Services as it was expected to become redundant when plans were still afoot to build a new hospital at Eco Park on the edge of town, which never came to fruition.

Ever since, Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust has been leasing the site on a yearly basis but no long-term one has been agreed.

Mr Dunne said: "I think everybody shares the frustration that there is not crystal clarity over this lease." He said such wrangles over the lease of buildings from NHS Property Services was a "national thing", not unique to Ludlow.

"There are 4,000 separate buildings are in this environment and its taking some time to get through them," Mr Dunne said.

"What the NHS is trying to do is create greater 'professionalism' within the property management in the NHS.

"The objective is to operate property as efficiently as possible."

But he said he was the first to admit that Ludlow's case had not been a great example of legal expertise being applied well.

Peter Corfield, chairman of the League of Friends of Ludlow Hospital, said: "I have great difficulty in thinking of NHS Property Services and 'efficiency' in the same sentence."

He said the hospital had an intermittent lift which meant dialysis patients could not be accepted when it was out of action and there were places in the building where the heating did not work.

"Most people just have no faith in NHS Property Services – I have no faith in them whatsoever.

"I just see it as an attack on the bottom line that affects the amount of money available for our health care," he added.