During my 19 years representing Shrewsbury in Parliament, nothing has been more intense and difficult than modernising our local hospital services. Three hundred local surgeons and doctors and other clinicians who work for our local Hospital Trust proposed modernising services and making them safer and more efficient for all the patients for whom they care. Let us not forget that these two hospitals are only 13 miles apart but cover the whole of Shropshire, Telford and mid-Wales.
These clinicians, at the coal face every day of caring for patients with the most vulnerable conditions, called for and developed a plan for a significant re-organisation of how services were carried out across these two hospitals, needed to meet growing requirements around patient safety and outcomes.
We listened to them and lobbied for the funding required to make these changes. We secured £312 million from the Department of Health six years ago, the most significant investment of its kind into the NHS in Shropshire.
Since that time, the project has had to contend with sustained opposition from the Labour Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, who lacks medical qualifications; but has used his position to block and frustrate these proposals at every turn, refusing to recognise the interdependence of these two hospitals for the whole of Shropshire and mid-Wales. This has contributed to delays in development of the project over the last six years, during whilst time services at both hospitals have been under sustained pressure:
I have also raised concerns about the lack of consistency in the senior management team of our local Hospital Trust and the experience of some of the senior managers I have encountered. There has been a relatively rapid turnover of Chief Executives over the years with consequent lack of longer-term commitment to the community they serve.
Finally I cannot forget that the Shrewsbury Labour Party deselected their previous Parliamentary Candidate because she had the temerity to challenge her counterpart in Telford for his plans to scrap the scheme. After such a painful and prolonged tussle between some Telford and Shrewsbury politicians, the project is finally moving towards its construction stage. I wrote to my Labour opponent asking her to back the project to show it finally has cross-party support. She has refused to do so and speaks of cuts at Telford Hospital. Her answer indicates clearly she continues to refuse to accept the collective views of our local NHS and clinicians and has pinned her flag to the mast of her Labour colleagues in Telford to try to thwart this critical investment. I am deeply concerned by her conduct.
Regards
Daniel Kawczynski MP for Shrewsbury
