Star comment: Future Fit risks being real farce

But Shropshire and Mid Wales can agree that it has lived up to the "future" bit of its title.

If it is not to go down in history as a farcical waste of time, some day in the future – the near future – the Future Fit process will crystallise, and the real debate, informed by hard recommendations and the hard choices they signify, can at last begin.

The long dragging out of the decision-making process has created a form of phoney war. Various interested parties have taken up positions, started to dig themselves in, and fired warning shots.

These hostilities have been based on leak, speculation, rumour, and expectation while Shropshire and Mid Wales wait for Future Fit to make its mind up and give us all the bad news – it is going to be bad news for somebody.

In threatening to seek a judicial review of Future Fit's recommendation, when it seemed that that recommendation would be to close Telford's accident and emergency department and switch women's and children's services from the Princess Royal Hospital to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Telford & Wrekin Council was blamed for creating a further delay.

A red herring, it turns out. Future Fit has reasons for delays coming out of its ears.

It has now emerged that the Future Fit Programme Board will not be able to make a decision until NHS England has provided feedback on Shropshire's "sustainability and transformation plan," or STP.

Public consultation on the fate of the county's A&E departments may not now start until deep into next year.

Something else to add to the mix is that it has turned out that if the Government refuses to fund the proposals, there is no plan B.

In the absence of any plan A as things stand, you could argue that the current situation is the plan B – that is, of muddling through and hoping, like Mr Micawber, that something will turn up.

On the national and international stage, the concept of seizing control has gained ground.

For all its flaws, Future Fit offers Shropshire a chance to seize control of its healthcare destiny.

One of the few measures of agreement in this process is that things cannot go on as they are. But as the delays continue, that is what is happening.