Future Fit is set to move forward as the Government today announced Shropshire will receive £312 million to transform local hospital services.
Today’s announcement clears the way for NHS England to provide its final, formal approval for the CCGs to launch the Future Fit public consultation. Once the CCGs receive this approval, they will finalise plans and announce the start date of the consultation.
In addition, the announcement is expected to have a more immediate impact, by attracting expert consultants, doctors and nurses to work for hospitals destined to undergo a transformation.
The funding was announced today by Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Hunt. The money makes up the largest proportion of a £760 million investment from the Department of Health & Social Care – the single biggest capital injection of its kind in the NHS for over a decade.
What is Future Fit?
The Future Fit proposal is to change the services provided at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford.
This will mean one of our hospitals becomes a specialist site for planned care. Adults requiring routine surgery including day case and short stay (excluding complex surgery) or procedure (eg routine endoscopies) will go to the planned care site.
The other hospital becomes a specialist site for emergency care. Patients with potential life or limb-threatening injuries or illnesses, such as a stroke, heart attack or severe blood loss, would be treated at the Emergency Care site. They would be taken there directly by paramedics in an ambulance or transferred immediately from one of our two new urgent care centres.
Both hospitals will have a new urgent care centre providing care 24 hours a day, every day of the year for illnesses and injuries that are not life or limb-threatening but require urgent attention.
Women and children’s services would also be available at both sites:
– Midwife-led unit, including low-risk births and postnatal care
– Maternity outpatients including antenatal appointments and scanning
– Gynaecology outpatient appointments
– Early Pregnancy Assessment Service (EPAS)
– Antenatal Day Assessment
– Children’s outpatient appointments
– Neonatal outpatient appointments
Formal Public Consultation
When a formal public consultation is launched, it will ask for people’s views on two options:
Option 1: The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital becomes an Emergency Care site and the Princess Royal Hospital becomes a Planned Care site (This the CCGs’ preferred option)
Option 2: The Princess Royal Hospital becomes an Emergency Care site and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital becomes a Planned Care site
Under either option, both hospitals would have an Urgent Care Centre that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
No decisions will be made until after a formal public consultation. The model has been co-designed by members of the public and over 300 clinicians, GPs and social care professionals. It will see one hospital becoming an Emergency Care site and the other a Planned Care site. This will allow specialist doctors to treat the most serious cases on the Emergency Care site, which is proven to be safer, provide better results for patients and reduce the amount of time people have to stay in hospital.
By having a separate Planned Care site, patients will wait less time for their appointments and beds would be protected for planned operations, meaning that is highly unlikely operations will be cancelled due to emergency admissions. In addition, both sites will have an Urgent Care Centre that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This means that almost 80% of patients will continue to go to the same hospital as they do now for emergency and urgent care.
Welcomed News
Dr Simon Freeman, Accountable Officer, Shropshire CCG said: “Thank you to everyone who has been involved in helping us to reach this point. This is fantastic news for our local communities and a major step forward in making sure we can secure two vibrant hospitals and improve the care received by people across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid Wales now and in the future.”
Mr David Evans, Chief Officer, NHS Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said: “This is a massive endorsement of the tireless work of our clinicians, staff and local people in co-designing the best model of hospital care for our region. When we proceed to consultation, we want people across all the areas served to make sure they have their say.”
Simon Wright, Chief Executive, The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, added: “This news sends out a clear message to our doctors, nurses and other frontline staff that we will be able to transform our hospital services to improve outcomes for our patients, reduce waiting times and cancellations and to become an even more attractive place for people to come and work.”
South Shropshire MP Philip Dunne, a former Health Minister, expressed his delight as the government green lights over £300m investment in the NHS in Shropshire.
Mr Dunne said: “This is great news for Shropshire. I am delighted the Chancellor and Secretary of State for Health & Social Care have recognised Shropshire’s case, which I articulated ahead of the Spring Statement, that the case for improving services in Shropshire should be a top priority for NHS England.
“We have secured the commitment to back the NHS in Shropshire to build state of the art acute care, and improve care in the community, fit for the future. The £312m funding represents the largest investment in healthcare in the UK by the NHS so far this year, and is the biggest public sector investment in healthcare in Shropshire ever.
“It will help transform the way healthcare is provided in the county, to resolve some of the previously intractable problems which held back service improvement and risked more services leaving the county. This investment will now allow the NHS in Shropshire to move forward with its plans with confidence, knowing that the funding will be there. I urge local residents to get involved in the public consultation, which I hope will be launched in coming weeks after Easter.”
Cllr Shaun Davies, Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council said: “This announcement means a consultation will start soon and it will be our turn to have our say on the plans. We need to make sure that the option chosen after the consultation is the one that gives best value not just for now, but for future generations too.
“Future Fit have looked at all the options and come up with two. They prefer one, we prefer the other.
“We believe our preferred option, of having emergency care in Telford and planned care in Shrewsbury is better for everyone, including the mums-to-be treated at the Women and Children’s Centre. This centre came to Telford based on clinical need and that need is still there.
“Our preferred option is the best one to serve the growing population of Telford and east Shropshire. It will also cost less to run in the longer term, meaning there will be more money available for community-based health services.
“When the consultation opens next month, the public will be asked to choose. We will encourage as many people as possible to take part and choose our preferred option.
“We hope health bosses will listen to the people. Last year this Council held its biggest consultation in its history. It was a consultation where we listened to the hundreds who responded and we acted. The end result was what people wanted. We hope health bosses will do the same.”
Tracey Huffer, Shropshire Councillor for Ludlow East and a Ludlow nurse, also welcomed the news.
“This is great news and so overdue. It will allow the county’s NHS services to be modernised. But this money should not be used as an excuse to centralise services in Shrewsbury and Telford at the expense of rural services and community hospitals.
“We must remember that this is capital funding. The assumption behind the grant is that modernisation of buildings and services will reduce day-to-day costs. That money can then be used to fund services in the community. But although the funding will lead to savings, the costs of health service provision are going up rapidly. The danger is that all the savings will be absorbed in Shrewsbury and Telford leaving a pittance for rural communities in Ludlow and the south of Shropshire.
“This money is to be celebrated. But we still need to address the underlying problem that Shropshire has one of the lowest health care spends per person in England.”
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Hunt said: “As the NHS approaches its 70th birthday, we are backing it with one of the largest capital programmes in NHS history. As well as a whole new emergency care development in Shropshire, we are backing local NHS services with new buildings, beds and wards so that staff who have been working incredibly hard over winter can have confidence we are expanding capacity for the future.
“Further major projects are also under consideration across the country and we intend to announce one large scale scheme the size of the Shrewsbury and Telford plan every year going forward based on high-quality plans coming forward from local NHS leaders.”
Shropshire Live is regulated by 