Telford’s two MPs have pledged to continue fighting to retain full paediatric services at the town’s hospital after the latest threat was revealed, this time against the children’s inpatient ward.
It was announced last week that one of Shropshire’s two children’s inpatient wards will have to close - a move that has been blamed on a need to cut junior doctors’ hours and difficulties in recruiting consultants.
At a meeting held last Thursday, Tom Taylor, chief executive of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, told board members that the children’s inpatient services could also be lost completely if there was another “enormous row” over whether they should be provided at the Royal Shrewsbury or Princess Royal hospitals.
Telford’s two MPs have slammed the news and have promised to keep fighting for full services at the Princess Royal.
Wrekin MP, Mark Pritchard, who has warned about secret plans to downgrade children’s services at the PRH for more than five years said: “It looks increasingly likely that children’s services will be cut. This flies in the face of all the false reassurances. I will fight these cuts all the way. I encourage local patients, parents, and grandparents to join the 10,000 people who have signed my Save the PRH petition at www.savetheprh.com.”
David Wright, Labour MP for Telford added: “I think people across Shropshire are sick and tired of the continuous speculation about hospital services. It is obvious to me that a growing town like Telford should have an inpatient children’s unit and I will be fighting for that to be the case.”
Some of the county’s top doctors and nurses are currently drawing up plans on how healthcare in Shropshire - including children’s inpatient services - can be delivered and improved over the next 12 years.
Four options are on the table and are currently being discussed with NHS stakeholders.
What appears to be the favourite would be to keep a children’s assessment unit at both hospitals but combine inpatient services on one site, and also introduce a home service.
One of the other options is not to change the current pattern but this would do nothing to tackle the challenges facing the trust.
There is also an option to keep both inpatient units and also introduce a home service. However it is feared a home service would divert resources from the units, making it even more difficult to sustain them in the long term.
The final and most radical option is to develop a new central children’s unit between Shrewsbury and Telford.
But this will only be feasible if other clinical services are also moved to the new site. Final recommendations will not be made until October.
Chairman of Hadley & Leegomery Parish Council, Pat Smart said the idea of building a third hospital was absurd. It defied logic that paediatric services belonged anywhere else.
