Shropshire MP raises alarm over hospital performance after new NHS rankings calling for Government to 'fix the crisis'
A Shropshire MP has raised concerns over local healthcare provision after some of the county's emergency hospitals were ranked amongst the worst performing in the country.
Helen Morgan, MP for North Shropshire and Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Health and Social Care, met with Health Minister Karin Smyth MP at Westminster on September 10 to discuss ongoing issues with NHS services in the county.
The meeting followed the publication of new league tables by the Department of Health, ranking the performance of NHS hospital trusts across England.
The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital performed well, ranked 27th out of 134 trusts. However, the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) - which runs both the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital in Telford - was placed in category four, the lowest, and ranked 113th.
Responding to the ranking, SaTH's chief executive Jo Williams said it reflected improvement on last year, and reaffirmed the trust’s ambition to "be amongst the best hospitals" - while acknowledging there is still more work to do.
She pointed to SaTH’s position as one of the most improved trusts for planned care waiting times and diagnostics.
Mrs Morgan said her discussion with the Minister included concerns over A&E waiting times at SaTH, which she said were the second-worst in the country for patients waiting more than four hours.
The North Shropshire MP said: "It was a productive meeting with the Minister and I’m grateful for her time. Some health services in Shropshire have been in the spotlight for the wrong reasons for too long, so it was good to discuss recent improvements and what more needs to be done.
"When it comes to SaTH, it’s recognised that there have been green shoots of positive progress, especially around scan wait times, but it’s also clear that there’s a long way to go.
"On top of performance improvements locally, the Government needs to grip the issues in adult social care, so that we can fix the current crisis and relieve unnecessary pressure on our hospitals."
The data ranked trusts across England - including acute trusts, non-acute trusts and ambulance trusts.
Each section of the list was subdivided into four performance categories.
Trusts were ranked within their category based on a "score" that was determined by averaging their performance against a range of targets, such as reducing waiting times for treatment and for being seen in A&E departments, or improving ambulance response times.
