Telford & Wrekin Council formally refers hospital shake-up plans to Health Secretary

Telford & Wrekin Council has formally referred the decision to make changes to
planned and emergency healthcare at Shropshire's two main hospitals to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

In a 61 page document submitted to Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Telford & Wrekin Council said its reasons for referring this decision were that the Future Fit decision is not in the best interests of health services in the area. The Council also says that the consultation with the Joint Scrutiny Committee was inadequate.

The Council backed the decision to make the referral to the Secretary of State when it met on 18 February.

Future Fit decision

The decision, known as Future Fit, was made by Telford & Wrekin and Shropshire’s Clinical Commissioning Groups at the end of January.

Princess Royal Hospital in Telford will become a dedicated Planned Care site and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital will become a specialist Emergency Care site.

The decision follows last year’s consultation which began at the end of May and closed at midnight on Tuesday 11 September 2018. Over 14,000 people submitted their response to the consultation and public events were attended by 900 people and 2,000 people dropped into one of the pop-up displays.

Lengthy and detailed legal referral

Council Leader Shaun Davies said: “This is a lengthy and detailed legal referral.

“It outlines many of the arguments we have long made and goes further into how Future Fit’s decision would not meet the growing and changing needs of our population - not now and not in the future. 

“There is insufficient evidence of any investment in primary and community healthcare services which are needed to help keep people out of hospital in the first place. 

“We have no confidence that the NHS can afford to carry it out with what is a loan, not a grant, from the government. We have no confidence that there would be any savings from these hospital changes to re-invest back into primary care and community services that are so badly needed in the borough and in Shropshire and Mid Wales.

“We had previously asked the Health Secretary to intervene because we believe this decision makes no sense. 

“This formal referral by the Council now forces him to review proposals that I believe to be incomplete following analysis that was flawed, leaving too many questions unanswered.

“We believe the plans, if implemented, would be very damaging for our local community.

“The future of this decision is now in the hands of the Secretary of State and I trust that he will use his powers to protect health care in the borough.