Mid Wales welcomes Shropshire hospital changes

Montgomery Welsh Assembly member, Russell George, is calling on the Welsh Government to allocate more funding to Powys Teaching Health Board for minor injury units and develop a Community Hospital Development Fund to encourage the innovative use of community hospitals across rural Wales.

It follows the decision to create a new Emergency Care centre at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital with The Princess Royal Hospital in Telford becoming a Planned Care centre, with 24-hour Urgent Care centres at both hospitals.

Mr George said welcomed the decision of the joint committee of Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups.

"I am pleased that the Emergency Care Centre will be located in Shrewsbury, which is centrally located, to serve the life-saving emergency healthcare needs of the wider region and those of us here in Montgomeryshire.

“As a result, I believe that it is essential that some planned care is delivered locally in our local community hospitals in Llanidloes, Newtown, Welshpool and Machynlleth, to prevent the need to travel out of county to see a consultant.

“NHS services should be delivered as close as possible to home," he said.

“I’d like to thank the people of Mid Wales who engaged in the public consultation over Future Fit and completed my own survey in relation to this consultation. I received over 600 responses from residents in Montgomeryshire. The overwhelming conclusion was that 95 per cent of respondents preferred an emergency care centre at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital rather than the Princess Royal in Telford but there were also concerns that under both options, the proposed model of care would result in residents having to travel further for some of their care.

"Having some planned care delivered locally in our local community hospitals would prevent the need to travel out of county to see a consultant."

Powys County Councillor, Joy Jones, said the Future Fit decision was tremendous news.

"Shrewsbury is the ideal place to have the emergency department and Critical care unit; it’s close to the border which is important for the people of Powys but also easy access for people in Shropshire. In an ideal world we would all like to see an A&E In both Shrewsbury and Telford but with strain on the NHS and staffing issues this has become impractical, she said.

"Both sites have remained open over the last few years but we have watched the whole service become unstable causing departments to close from time to time, so a transformation of the whole service is desperately needed."

"This decision is the way forward as this does not only keep the Emergency department and critical care unit in Shrewsbury but it brings back women's and children's services which will be a big relieved too many parents from Powys who have been forced to travel to Telford with their very ill children."

"Telford will now become the hospital where we go for most of our planned surgery, being planned surgery it means we have time to plan our journey and our stay in hospital unlike in an emergency.

"Let's hope now we see things start to move quickly forward so that changes can start to be made and the uncertainty come to an end and we start seeing our hospital services start to reshape and come together for the benefit of all patients. I hope that once this is transformation is complete we have hospitals to be proud of and they become a centre of Excellence that makes Shropshire stand out above the rest."