Shropshire Star

Future Fit: Campaigner calls for Shropshire's health shake-up to be axed

The fact that Shropshire's two main hospitals are being forced to use extra capacity to cope with high demand highlights why the controversial Future Fit process should be axed, a health campaigner has said.

Published
Gill George

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which runs Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal Hospital, says it has been incredibly busy this week and its emergency departments had to cope with almost 800 people over two days.

The trust has also been forced to cancel elective day cases.

Gill George, from Shropshire Defend Our NHS, said: "This highlights, of course, why they have to pull the plug on the whole Future Fit project.

"Ambulances are stacked up outside A&E because there aren’t enough hospital beds to admit patients into, and patients are now being cared for in the corridors again because there aren’t enough beds.

"This is in November, with the real winter pressures due to hit after Christmas.

"Future Fit means 110 fewer hospital beds, an 18 per cent reduction in the number of nurses, and fewer doctors too – quite apart from the nonsense of closing an A&E.

"If our two hospitals aren’t coping now, cuts on this scale can only be disastrous."

She said the underlying problem is funding for the NHS.

Debbie Kadum, chief operating officer at the trust, said SaTH had to implement its "hospital full" protocol earlier this week, using extra capacity where available to ensure its emergency departments can continue to function.

But she said it was just one example of why the trust would like to separate its planned and emergency care, to ensure that it can treat as many people as possible at times of high demand.

Earlier this month, Shropshire's Clinical Commissioning Group and its Telford & Wrekin counterparts signed off on Future Fit's "pre-consultation business case" and consultation documents, which will be used to ask the public what they think.

NHS England has now been asked to validate the documents, a process expected to take around two weeks, then the public will finally get the long-awaited opportunity to make their own comments on the proposals from early December.

The preferred option agreed by the CCGs involves a single A&E unit at RSH and moving the consultant-led women and children unit to Shrewsbury.