05/02/2015 - Permalink

Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee to listen to response from health and social care leads around Shropshire’s Future Fit programme

Related topics: Health / Partner organisations

Shropshire’s Future Fit programme will be discussed at a question and answer style session at Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin’s Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (JHOSC) meeting on Thursday 12 February 2015.

Senior NHS representatives, and representatives from councils, will be presenting their answers at the JHOSC meeting between 2pm and 4pm to answer a series of questions put forward by the committee.

Most of the 35 questions raised by the committee focus on the acute sector and ambulance service, primary and community care, social care and health systems, and how public expectations are being managed throughout the Future Fit consultation.

Prior to the question and answer session, Dr Caron Morton and Mr David Evans of Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups will provide an update on the Future Fit programme.  This will include the next series of shortlisted options following the first round of Future Fit consultations last year.  The recommended options include:

  • An Emergency Centre, and Diagnostic and Treatment Centre, on a new site
  • An Emergency Centre on a new site, and Diagnostic & Treatment Centre at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital
  • An Emergency Centre on a new site, and Diagnostic and Treatment Centre at Princess Royal Hospital
  • An Emergency Centre at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, and Diagnostic and Treatment Centre at Princess Royal Hospital
  • An Emergency Centre at Princess Royal Hospital, and Diagnostic and Treatment Centre at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital
  • Do minimum (existing dual site acute services maintained, provider and commissioner efficiency strategies implemented, but no major services change).

Councillor Gerald Dakin, who will be chairing the meeting, said:

“We want to ensure that the Future Fit programme is fit for purpose and that the health needs of Shropshire residents remain at the heart of any decision-making.

“Although the shortlisting of options is the next step in this journey towards a sustainable health economy for Shropshire, the series of questions we have, I hope, address many of the concerns and queries the committee has around the safety, robustness and sustainability of the services through these changes.

“It is also important that the public understand that this is not an immediate solution, but that the Future Fit programme is being approached in a rational and transparent way that will take into consideration the whole of Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin’s health economy.”

Councillor Derek White, co-chair of JHOSC, added:

“The NHS has announced the shortlisted options for the Future Fit programme, identifying where the Emergency Care Centre could be located.  The NHS has engaged with a wide range of people to develop this shortlist – but it is important that the public have an opportunity to understand how this shortlist was developed, and what options are not included and why.  The Joint HOSC will be asking the NHS to explain this, and also to answer a range of other questions that we believe are essential for the success of the Future Fit programme.”

Further information about the meeting, along with the list of questions, can be found here: https://shropshire.gov.uk/committee-services/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=2837&x=1

Further information

Shropshire Council, and Telford & Wrekin Council, have responsibilities for scrutinising health services within their areas.

A joint Committee, consisting of councillors and co-optees from each council’s Health Scrutiny Committee, has been established to scrutinise health issues that impact on the wider health economy in Shropshire, and Telford and Wrekin.

This has particularly focussed on changes and reconfiguration of acute services run by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

Meetings of the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee are held in public, though the public are not allowed to speak.  The committee includes co-optees of both councils, who are: David Beechey, Ian Hulme, Mandy Thorn and Dilys Davis.