March against plans to downgrade services at the PRH to take place today
A march to demonstrate against plans to downgrade services at the Princess Royal Hospital will take place in Wellington today.
The march will leave from Wellington Market Square at 11am and process to the Princess Royal Hospital.
The route will head from Market Square along Church Street before crossing Vineyard Road and onto Park Street. It will then turn left onto Whitchurch Road before arriving at the hospital via Apley Avenue.
Roads along the route may be closed for short periods to allow for the safe passage of demonstrators. Telford & Wrekin Council say the extent of the closures and durations will be fully dependent on numbers.
The march comes after it was revealed earlier this week that a non-financial appraisal of options as part of the NHS Future Fit programme will recommend the closure of the new £28million Women and Children’s Centre, just two years after it opened, and A&E at Telford and moving them to Shrewsbury.
The leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, Cllr Shaun Davies, has urged the boss of the NHS group overseeing plans to move key services from Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital to call an immediate “break” on the process.
Mr Davies along with the Deputy Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council has also written a letter to Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt voicing their concerns over how decisions are being made about the future of services at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital.
In the letter Council Leader Shaun Davies and Deputy Leader Richard Overton warn the process is being rushed in order for it to be rubber-stamped by Telford and Shropshire’s Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) next month to hit a timetable for public consultation in December.
It also questions the make up of the non-financial appraisal panel which met last week. And it calls on Mr. Hunt to ensure, in the meantime, that both current A&Es are well staffed and maintained, drawing on spare capacity in other parts of the region’s hospital services, in order to keep them open.
The letter reads: “With just over a week until the two CCG Boards meet to make the final recommendation of the preferred option for consultation – this does not allow for proper consideration of the proposed recommendation.”
It adds: “We… would look to you and ask you and your senior team to broker and enable transitional consultant support for these Hospitals from neighbouring clinical networks to maintain the current service until the right sustainable long-term solution for hospital services across the county can be put in place.”
On Thursday 6 October an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Council will be held to formally request that Mr Hunt intervenes and halts the plan that would see these two key services leave the PRH.
