20 April 2017

The following statement outlines what women and children’s services are proposed to be on the Emergency Site and Planned Care Sites under the Trust’s Sustainable Services Programme. More details about the programme are available here.  The programme feeds into NHS Future Fit and will be subject to a full public consultation:

Simon Wright, Chief Executive of The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: “The intention, if our proposals are approved, is to have the acute Women and Children’s Service on the same site as the Emergency Centre and a further Women and Children’s Centre on the Planned Care site.

“The Women and Children’s Service on the Emergency Site would deliver Inpatient facilities for women and children, including Obstetrics, Neonatal Services, Early Pregnancy Assessment Services (EPAS), Antenatal Care, Outpatients and Scanning, as well as a Consultant-Led Maternity Service. A Midwife-Led Unit would also remain.

“The Women and Children’s Centre on the Planned Care Site would provide Maternity Outpatients, including antenatal and postnatal care, scanning and day assessment; a Midwife-Led Unit; an Early Pregnancy Assessment Service (EPAS); Gynaecology Outpatients/Day Case Surgery; Neonatal Outpatients and Outreach Care and a Children’s Outpatients and Outreach Care.

“This is a real opportunity to ensure both the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford are sustainable for the next 20 years and beyond. For example, if our proposals are approved, the new Emergency Centre would be 50% larger than our current small A&Es, helping to attract more Consultants to ensure a sustainable workforce for the future. A state-of-the-art 30-bedded Intensive Therapy Unit and High Dependency Unit would be provided alongside the Emergency Department.

“The Emergency Centre would be supported by Accident and Urgent Care Centres (A&U Centres) at both hospitals. These A&U Centres would be open 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, and would see the majority of patients who currently attend our A&Es.

“The plan is to have 64 clinical spaces to treat emergency, accident and urgent care patients. At present we have just 39. There would also be 30% more critical care beds.

“Our proposals also include introducing a second cancer unit. At the moment we have a cancer unit at RSH but we want a second one at PRH so we can treat patients that need day case treatment such as Chemotherapy on both hospital sites.

“No decisions have been made and the proposals would be subject to a full public consultation through the NHS Future Fit programme.”