Royal Shrewsbury Hospital Rainbow Unit under threat

A purpose built children's cancer centre at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital could be demolished under plans for a shake-up of hospital services in the county, it was revealed this afternoon.

But hospital campaigners said they 'vehemently' opposed the proposals and claimed it would be 'soul-destroying' for parents who have lost children at the centre since it opened in 2005.

Adam Cairns, chief executive of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, outlined four options for the Rainbow Cancer Unit at a meeting of the parent oncology focus group last night.

One is to bulldoze the £800,000 building as part of the shake-up of services at the Royal Shrewsbury and Telford's Princess Royal which are due to take effect from the summer of 2014.

If plans are approved, women's and children's services would be concentrated in Telford with acute inpatient abdominal surgery consolidated at the Royal Shrewsbury.

Other options for the unit are office use, a training unit or to put a sculpture on the site to represent the hard work that went in to raising funds for it.

But nurse Wendy Hayeck, of Shrewsbury, who started the Government e-petition asking for maternity, neonatal and children's services to be retained at Shrewsbury, said: "The main sticking point with the plans is still the legacy of the Rainbow Unit and what they plan to do with it. The first two options we are vehemently against as we don't want it to be sat empty as office space and we certainly don't want it to be knocked down.

"That would be soul destroying for everyone who has been touched by the centre in some way and would also be disrespectful to the children who have sadly not made it out of there."

A hospital trust spokesman said Mr Cairns had ruled out using it as offices and the trust wanted to hear ideas from people who have been involved with the unit. A group will be set up to explore ideas further. Contact future@sath.nhs.uk to get involved.