Campaigners claim Shrewsbury A&E unit will stay open

There’s good news today for those fighting to keep the A&E unit open at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital with campaigners conceding that Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital’s department is to close.

The A&E  department at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital will close ­along with the Women’s and Children’s Centre which opened just two years ago at a cost of £28 million, campaigners claimed.

The claims, which have not been confirmed, come as the Future Fit review of health services moves to a critical stage.

The Defend Our NHS group says it has received information that A&E will close at PRH and a single department for the county created at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.The Women’s and Children’s Centre, opened with a fanfare by the Princess Royal in 2014, will also be moved to Shrewsbury.

Planned surgery will largely move to the Telford hospital, according to campaigners.

Defend our NHS spokeswoman Gill George said: “This is the decision taken at last Friday’s ‘non-financial appraisal’ meeting, and is in line with rumours that have been emerging in the last two months.

“This option was promoted vigorously by representatives of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. We have been told it is a virtual certainty that this will be endorsed by a financial appraisal panel, and rubber-stamped by a Future Fit Programme Board in early October.

“The Emergency Centre, now intended to be at the Royal Shrewsbury, is for unplanned emergency patients. It will also take a small number of ‘complex’ patients needing planned care. There will be no other planned care at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

“The Planned Care Centre, to be at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital, will be the site for all planned care – for diagnostic tests such as MRIs, routine surgery like cataracts and hip/knee replacements, and importantly, cancer care.

“Some acute patients will transfer from the Royal Shrewsbury to the Princess Royal if they are well enough after three days, but no acutely ill patients will be directly admitted to the Princess Royal.”

Ms George said her group would continue to fight the plans.

Telford & Wrekin Council leader Shaun Davies said the council take any decision of this nature to a judicial review and has called for a "urgent intervention" by the Department of Health.

Future Fit have released a statement saying: "The outcome of the non-financial option appraisal which has taken place does not constitute a decision.

"The next steps are that the outcome of the non-financial appraisal and financial appraisal will go to the NHS Future Fit Programme Board in October, who will then make a recommendation to the Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin CCGs.

"The NHS Future Fit programme still has a long way to go before a final decision is made. This includes a full Public Consultation that will run for a minimum of 12 weeks."