Future Fit: Mid Wales patients 'ignored' in Shropshire health plans
A campaigner has criticised health chiefs for "ignoring" Mid Wales patients in the debate over which of Shropshire's accident and emergency departments is retained.
Joy Jones, county councillor for Newtown and leader of the town's Health Forum, said she is angry following the latest twist in the Future Fit saga after the programme was thrown into disarray after Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin's clinical commissioning groups split on whether to back the plans.
Mrs Jones said the programme has been "a shambles" and that the Mid Wales patients' voices were not being listened to, despite Powys Teaching Health Board paying into Shropshire healthcare.
"Powys pays a tremendous amount of money to Shropshire," she said.
"If that money was removed, plans would be in jeopardy and the £14.5million deficit would be a lot higher, that's what they need to remember.
"Yet this week a behind-closed-doors meeting was held, with absolutely no representation from Powys. It's a complete disgrace."
Mrs Jones was referring to a meeting held on Thursday when representatives from Shropshire's two main hospitals and the county's two clinical commissioning groups pledged to seek the views of clinicians and patients over the coming weeks about the problems facing health services.
Since the beginning of the Future Fit proposals, Mrs Jones has urged health officials to site a single A&E department at the most central location out of the areas it serves – which is Shrewsbury.
"It's time we were listened to because Mid Wales can't afford to have our A&E moved further away than it is already," she said.
"We struggle for patients to get to Shrewsbury within the golden hour as it is, let alone if we had to get to Telford," she said.
"This week we've had Telford MP Lucy Allan inform us of their good transport links, well that's good for them, then they can use those links to get to Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton and Stoke.
"In Mid Wales, we are deprived financially and of good transport links."
Mrs Jones has also spoken on behalf of a Newtown mother, whose premature baby stayed in the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford but she was sent home because there were no beds for her to stay in.
"This woman's baby was taken to Telford because the baby was premature but there was no room for mum and she had to rely on transport links to get to and from the hospital, what if there had been an emergency?," she said.
"What would she have done?
"Thankfully Powys Teaching Health Board managed to sort out a bed for her a few days later but that should never have happened in the first place.
"It isn't just patients affected, it's also their loved ones."
