Shropshire Hospitals get reprieve

Shropshire's hospitals have been given a repieve following months of threatened closures and downgrading of services to pay crippling debts and plug a growing deficit.

Shropshire NHS is over £30m in debt and has a budget deficit of £60m and mooted the idea of closing the smaller hospitals in the county to try and cut costs.

There are two main hospitals in Shropshire - the Princess Royal in Telford and the Royal Shrewsbury in (believe it or not) Shrewsbury - and a number of smaller hospitals in outlying areas. As the most rural county in England, the rural hospitals provide a valuable service. Without them, patients in South Shropshire would face an hours drive to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for some things as the Princess Royal doesn't offer the same services.

A large protest took place recently in Bridgnorth, the home of one of the threatened hospitals, in which thousands of people turned up to protest.

Shropshire Primary Care Ttust has now said that it will have to cut some services to save money but it has ruled out closing the four smaller hospitals.

Once question remains unanswered though, by local MP's, the British government, Shropshire NHS and the press. That question is why, when the county NHS service is £30m in debt and has a budget deficit of £60m, are we still expected to contribute nearly £65m to the Scottish subsidy alone every year and over £100m in total to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? I don't have a problem helping out our neighbours if they're short of cash but not at the expense of services here and certainly not to provide them with a superior health service (Herceptin, for example) to our own.

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