Health leader accepts ‘challenge’ of 'supercharging' Shropshire’s NHS community services at meeting
Health chiefs in Shropshire told a meeting they are up for the challenge of completely transforming the NHS across the county.
Councillors were told that the basis of plans is the assumption that patients are better off if they can stay at home – or go to community hospitals – rather than going into one of the two major acute centres.
Jo Williams, group chief executive of the county’s acute hospitals and community services, told a health campaigner that it was “challenge accepted” to make sure that services were ready for a crunch date in 2028.
The joint health overview and scrutiny committee was told that the Hospitals Transformation Programme (HTP) will see a huge new extension at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) open and in use in 2028. It is currently on track.
Under plans the RSH will be the county’s base for emergency work while the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford will be for planned care. But services run by the Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (Shropcom) will be crucial to making it work.
Health campaigner David Sandbach, a former chief executive of the PRH, told the meeting at Shrewsbury’s Guildhall on Friday (February 13) that there was “no costed community plan or workforce plan” to support the HTP that he could see.
He said if plans don’t work out the HTP could “hit a brick wall a month after it opens. It will all clog up”.
Ms Williams admitted that “we have got some catching up to do” regardless of the RSH extension.
She added: “We want to transform the services so it is challenge accepted. We have got the time, the workforce and the board to do it.”
Shropshire Council’s Reform UK group leader Councillor Dawn Husemann (Claverley and Worfield) gave an example of how she felt the NHS is not working properly.
She told the meeting of the case of a 93-year-old woman who suffered a “gash on the head” and went to Ludlow Community Hospital.
“She was told they can’t stitch her up and would need to send her to Hereford Hospital,” she said.
The meeting was told that there are plans to change what the network of Shropcom community hospitals like at Ludlow, Bishop’s Castle and Whitchurch can do.
“It is about how we can supercharge our community services,” said Ms Williams.
There is a combined workforce of some 10,000 people across Shropcom and the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH).
Friday morning’s meeting was told that there are now “hundreds” of so-called ‘change agents’ amid the workforce.
They are already employed in jobs and have been appointed to serve as ambassadors for the new clinical model being developed. Job roles are changing as a result.
Chief envisage staff relocating, working across sites and being in “rotational roles”.
“We are going to turn it completely on its head to redesign services,” said Ms Williams.
Andrew Morgan, the group chairman of SaTH and Shropcom, said hospitals had for a long time been the main focus of health care but now “normality is at home”.
He added: “We want to give people the confidence back that the NHS is safe in our hands.
“I have been working in the NHS for 45 years and I don’t want to muck it up and we are making progress.”
