Future Fit: Fears that A&E closure would swamp Shropshire GPs
The reorganisation of Shropshire's hospitals – including the closure of one of the county's A&E units – could "overwhelm GP services", a leading doctor warned today.
Dr Ian Rummens, secretary of Shropshire Local Medical Committee (LMC), says reservations over the Future Fit review by local GPs will be difficult to overcome without greater funding for the NHS.
He said the ideal solution would be for more funding to be made available build a new hospital between Shrewsbury and Telford.
Last week Dr Rummens told an extraordinary meeting of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups that the LMC could not back the Future Fit plans. The proposals then stalled when Shropshire CCG also voted against backing the plans.
The concerns were sparked by fears that GPs will not be provided with resources to deal with an increase in patients caused by the intended changes at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital Telford.
Dr Rummens said: "Future Fit, which started in 2013, was originally intended to design a new framework of hospital and community care.
"It rapidly became clear that the intention was for a scaling down so that up to 30 per cent of hospital work would take place in the community, with rural urgent care centres playing an important part."
He added: "They have produced an outline strategic case which the CCG boards were asked to support. The LMC, which represents all GPs in Shropshire, including Telford & Wrekin, was also asked to support the proposals but felt unable to because no attempt had been made to identify where the money to fund the additional work would come from."
Dr Rummens said that without the issues being resolved, "we fear the reconfiguration of the hospitals could overwhelm GP services".
The current Future Fit proposals recommend that only one of Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal hospitals would retain its A&E.
Dr Rummens has said that more funding should be provided to build a new hospital between Shrewsbury and Telford.
He said: "The ideal solution, in terms of efficiency savings and improving care, would be to build a new hospital between Shrewsbury and Telford, but this has been dismissed as unaffordable, despite the fact it would eventually pay for itself."
Dr Rummens' comments come after the Future Fit Programme Board accepted that more needed to be done to address the concerns of GPs before it could make progress with the plans.
Julian Povey, Chair of Shropshire CCG said: "As a GP in rural Shropshire for over 20 years I want what is best for our communities, and all local GPs feel the same.
"There is clear concern that the pressures faced by our GP practices haven't so far been recognised and that is something we need to acknowledge and address."
