Shropshire hospitals face £2 million cash gap in looming winter crisis

Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal Hospital are 29 beds short of the capacity they need to meet extra demand.

But a cash crisis has deprived the hospitals of funding they need to pay for the beds.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which runs the hospitals, is now looking for ways to find the extra cash. Its chief executive Simon Wright admitted the crisis after being questioned by Save the NHS campaigner Gill George at a board meeting.

She claimed Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group had not given any money to help the hospitals. The body is currently heading for a £26 million deficit and was placed in special measures because of its finances.

Ms George said: "Shropshire CCG was awarded £1.9 million for winter pressures. But they were only allowed to spend £500,000 and £1.4 million got lost in the system."

Mr Wright said: "We were supposed to get £3 million to help with winter pressures.

"We were given £1 million from Telford's CCG and that is it. The consequence is the situation is worsening."

Pressure on A&E departments has led to an increase in the number of cancelled operations and increased waiting times in recent years.

The hospitals trust has already set aside funding of £1.7 million to cover the winter and has identified ways to create 63 beds.

As part of the system winter plan, it is appealing for other health groups to offer schemes to create the other 29 beds needed for the winter period.

Mr Wright said the winter pressure money was mostly being used to fund more staff to cope with the demand.

He said: "We have converted some of our day case wards that usually run until 7pm into an emergency ward staffed 24 hours a day. There is quite a large cost to fund the extra nursing and doctors there.

We have also extended some areas that were open five days a week to seven days a week.

"We have just appointed two locum A&E consultants and we have appointed additional respiratory physicians as well because 40 per cent of cases in the winter are respiratory cases. One of those people will also be working in the community to try and help patients to stay well at home."

Mr Wright said there is more that could be done if he had access to more funding.

He said: "If we had more funds we would be talking to the community about how we extend the capacity into the community.

"We are already talking to the third sector about nursing homes and care beds but at the moment we do not have the funding to be able to contract them.

"I am worried about the increasingly pressure on staff - especially coming up to the winter.

"Our nursing staff are showing their dedication in the hours they are putting in as well as the consultants.

"My concern is both A&Es have been under pressure for decades and we can't keep assuming we can get by and somehow it will be OK. We can't do that. It is not fair on the staff and not fair on patients.

"The teams are doing great work - we just don't have enough people and the departments are too small.

"Creating a third environment in the form of a new emergency centre is investing more space and more staff and will help going forward."