I am delighted to share the continued development at the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) in Telford.
A new tele dermatology service has been launched which supports our patients in receiving a quicker diagnosis and treatment for skin cancer.
A growing range of healthcare services are now available at the CDC, based in Hollinswood House, Stafford Park, which gives our patients easier access to diagnostic checks, scans and tests.
I hope you all have a restful Easter bank holiday weekend, and I would like to encourage you to continue to ‘Think which service?’ to ensure that you get the right help at the right time should you need any health care.
Our emergency departments (EDs) are extremely busy and our EDs are for genuinely life-threatening emergencies. If you have an urgent care need which isn’t immediately life threatening, there are a number of services available and all the information on the ‘Think which service?’ is on the website: www.thinkwhichservice.co.uk
We have seen recent outbreaks of measles and whooping cough in the West Midlands, including cases in Shropshire.
Both are highly infectious viral illness which can affect anyone but is most common in children.
Please ensure you and your children’s vaccinations are up to date as they not only protect yourselves, but also contribute to the collective immunity of our communities.
Information and advice on measles is on the NHS website (www.nhs.uk/conditions/measles/). Similarly, information and advice on whooping cough can also be found on the NHS website (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/whooping-cough/).
Anyone with symptoms is advised to stay at home and phone their GP or NHS 111 for advice, rather than visiting a GPs’ surgery or an Emergency Department, to prevent the illness spreading further.
If you are visiting our hospitals, could I please remind you to help keep our patients and colleagues safe by: Always cleaning your hands using soap and water or alcohol hand gel before and after contact with a patient; considering wearing a face mask to protect yourself and others when visiting our Emergency Departments (ED); and not visiting if you have flu-like symptoms (cough, fever, cold), if you know you have measles, COVID-19 or flu, or any other infections and diarrhoea and/or vomiting within the last two days.
We are continuing our community drop-ins as part of our Hospitals Transformation Programme (HTP) and our clinicians will be visiting Wem as part of the Thursday market from 9.30am-12noon.
The HTP plans will ensure our communities across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and mid Wales will benefit from high quality, sustainable care and fewer delays for treatment for everyone, at two thriving hospital sites.
I would encourage residents to stop by and talk to our team who can answer any questions you may have about our proposed clinically-led plans.
And finally, I would like to extend my congratulations to mother and daughter duo, Kelly and Grace, who have joined the nursing workforce after studying and graduating together.
Kelly received a Golden Ticket (a guaranteed job) for a role as Staff Nurse in Endoscopy at The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Grace secured a job in Paediatrics at The Princess Royal Hospital.
Although I may be biased, nursing is a highly rewarding career, and one that is never too late to begin. You can find out more about a career in nursing via the NHS careers website.