Trust handed keys to £28m Shropshire Women and Children’s Centre
The keys to a new £28million centre for women and children have been handed to the Trust which will run it.
Construction firm Balfour Beatty handed over the Shropshire Women and Children’s Centre to The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust yesterday.
The Trust will now prepare the building, at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, to get it ready for inpatient women and children’s services to move in on 29 and 30 September 2014, when the centre will open.
Over the coming weeks equipment and beds will be fitted, the facilities will be tested and training will be given to prepare staff to use the building.
Kate Shaw, Programme Manager for the Future Configuration of Hospital Services (FCHS) at the Trust, said: “I’m delighted that we have now formally taken over the building. The main construction work has been completed, although works are still underway in part of the building to create our new Women’s Services area.
“We will now be spending the coming weeks preparing the building for clinical use. Some staff have already begun to visit the centre to receive their orientation training, and the feedback we’ve received so far has been excellent.”
When it opens at the end of September, the Shropshire Women and Children’s Centre will be the main facility providing care for women and children for Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid Wales.
Part of the building is already being used, as the Children’s Ward at the Princess Royal Hospital moved from the first floor of the hospital down into its former location on the ground floor, which has been refurbished and is now part of the new centre. It is the only part of the centre which is open, with the rest due to open at the end of September.
Cathy Smith, Women and Children’s Care Group Director and Head of Midwifery at the Trust, said: “The handing over of the building to the Trust is a really key milestone, and I’d like to thank everyone who has helped us to reach this stage. The centre will be an excellent facility for the region when it opens in September, and will benefit thousands of women and children from Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid Wales over the coming years.
“We will be implementing our plans over the coming weeks to test the building and plan the transfer of services over to the new centre ready for 29 and 30 September.”
Whilst Women and Children’s Services are changing, most people accessing the service will continue to go to the same hospital as they do now.
Both the Princess Royal Hospital and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital will still have a Midwife-led Unit, a Children’s Assessment Unit as well as Outpatient services.
Women having a low-risk birth will still be able to choose to have their baby at home, at one of our five Midwife-led Units at Oswestry, Bridgnorth, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, or Wrekin at Princess Royal Hospital or one of the Midwife-led Units provided by the Powys Teaching Health Board.
