£24m care hub at the PRH set to improve planned care facilities

A new £24 million planned care hub is being purpose-built at the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) which will improve services and reduce the time that patients in the county are waiting for their operations.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust says the new hub will provide more theatres and recovery beds dedicated to day case surgery, substantially increasing the number of same day operations that can take place – and enabling services to be provided all year round.

The Trust also says that patients will benefit from fewer cancellations and delays for treatment, shorter waiting times and a much-improved experience.  

Work has already started on developing the new facility at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford and it is expected to start taking patients next summer.

This development is part of long-term plans to deliver improvements in care for all the population and support two thriving hospital sites.

The planned care hub is fully aligned with the Hospitals Transformation Programme (HTP), which will see the Telford hospital site specialise in planned care and the Shrewsbury hospital site specialise in emergency care, with both sites providing 24/7 urgent care services (delivered through an A&E Local model in Telford).

Louise Barnett, Chief Executive, said: “This is a significant investment in our Telford site which will improve the care that we provide to all our communities.

“The new dedicated planned care hub will enable us to deliver day case surgery all year round, so patients from Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and Mid Wales waiting for treatment will benefit from shorter waiting times for their operations.”

Dr John Jones, Medical Director (Acting), said: “The new planned care hub will mean that operations can be performed quickly and effectively in one place which is fantastic news for our patients.

“As well as shorter waits for surgery, they will be more likely to go home on the same day and will be less likely to need additional treatment after surgery leading to much improved outcomes and patient experience.”