Shortlist for transforming Shropshire NHS services revealed

The board will be asked to consider a recommended shortlist of scenarios for transforming emergency, planned and urgent care that will also serve patients from mid Wales.

The shortlist has been approved by an expert Evaluation Panel. This consisted of representatives of organisations across the local health economy, patient representatives and local authority representatives. They considered issues including quality, accessibility, workforce, deliverability and affordability.

The shortlisting follows the publication of a longlist of scenarios last year which has been the subject of public engagement.

The recommended shortlist is:

Emergency Centre (EC) and Diagnostic & Treatment Centre (DTC) on a New site;
EC on a New site, DTC at Princess Royal Hospital (PRH)
EC on a New site, DTC at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH)
EC at PRH, DTC at RSH
EC at RSH, DTC at PRH
Do minimum (existing dual site acute services maintained, provider and commissioner efficiency strategies implemented but no major services change).
(see Glossary below)

The Programme Board will also be asked to consider approving the prototyping of four initial Urgent Care Centres (UCCs): One at Telford; One at Shrewsbury; two elsewhere in the area, either in Oswestry, Whitchurch, Ludlow or Bridgnorth. This initial prototyping will allow the programme to learn and develop the UCC offer for local communities.

David Evans, Chief Officer of Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group and Dr Caron Morton, Chief Accountable Officer for Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group said:

"We would like to thank everyone on the Evaluation Panel for their hard work. This was an intensive exercise with very many variables to consider. We would also like to thank everyone including the many members of the public who have taken part in the engagement programme to date and whose views have led us to this point.

"These are the recommendations the NHS Future Fit Programme Board will be asked to consider but they are not binding.

"Once Programme Board has decided on a shortlist it will allow us to move on to the next stage of NHS Future Fit. This is an important landmark if we are to achieve the radical transformation of local NHS services which can best serve our patients and those from Wales who rely on them.

"Once we have a shortlist it will allow us to focus our efforts on further evaluating these scenarios so we can prepare more information ready for formal consultation later this year. This will include another round of public engagement. It will also involve an immense amount of technical work that would not be possible if we had the entire long list to consider.

"This work will help us arrive at a point, later in 2015, where the NHS Future Fit Programme Board is able to recommend a preferred option with which we can go out to a full public consultation.

"There is still a long way to go, but NHS Future Fit is making tangible progress."

The next round of engagement kicks off with two 'pop-up shops', one in Telford Shopping Centre on 20/21 February and Shrewsbury's Darwin Shopping Centre on 27/28 February.