The “Future Fit” reorganisation can be kept within its £312 million budget without sacrificing any key parts, the hospital trust has told a health committee.
In a letter to senior councillors, the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust said the proposed “clinical model”, consisting of one A&E and critical unit, two urgent care centres and a women and children’s unit, would be provided for the £312m previously stated.
A draft strategic outline case (SOC) for the reconfiguration, now formally known as the “Hospitals Transformation Programme”, is currently being considered by NHS England and NHS Improvement. SaTH “are presently not able to confirm a date” for its approval and publication.
The trust was responding to a letter, sent by Shropshire councillor Karen Calder and Telford and Wrekin councillor Derek White, who jointly chair the county-wide Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee. They also asked about the maintenance backlogs at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital, in Telford, which SaTH said stood at around £100m.
Cllr Calder and Cllr White asked SaTH to explain “how the clinical model will be realised within the £312m budget”.
SaTH’s reply said: “The clinical model will deliver the single emergency department and critical unit, two urgent care centres, a women and children’s unit and the beds required on each site to support the activity.
“The term ‘clinical model’ is used to describe the division of the hospital services into a site providing ‘hot’ unplanned care services or ‘warm’ planned services.
“The SOC also incorporates a programme of work to substantially address backlog infrastructure. Upon completion of the development, backlog will be restricted to low-risk clinical and non-clinical infrastructure.”
SaTH added that “the value of the backlog maintenance was computed as being circa £100m”, and improvements were planned to bring both hospitals up to “category-B standard”.
In their letter, Cllr Calder and Cllr White also asked: “Is there anything that will be left out of the capital plan to bring the project within the £312m?”
SaTH replied: “In developing the draft SOC, the clinical model consulted upon has been retained in its entirety. The draft SOC retains in full the building specification as previously presented.”
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