Improving Care For Everyone – Delivering Excellent Planned Care Throughout The Year

A key element of plans to upgrade acute hospital services across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid Wales involves the transformation of our Telford site to specialise in the delivery of planned care.

The dedicated planned care site will provide benefits for all residents, including:

• Operations and procedures will be able to take place all year round utilising dedicated theatres and wards
• Shorter waiting times will mean people can have treatment sooner, improving their recovery
• The services will be able to operate more effectively, ensuring that the right staff, right equipment and right facilities are available at the right time
• Patients will have a much better experience of the care they receive.

These plans build on our exciting recent announcement that £24 million is being invested in a new, purpose-built, planned care hub at the Princess Royal Hospital site in Telford, which will provide greater access to theatres and recovery beds and increase the number of same day operations all year round.

Leading clinician, Dr Steve McKew, Divisional Medical Director for Surgery, Anaesthetics and Cancer at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, says:

"These changes will result in genuine improvements for our patients, modernising our services and significantly reducing delays to planned surgery and cancer treatment, whilst also making the services much more resilient to future pressures.

“Delays to planned surgery have a real impact on the quality of peoples’ lives and their ability to recover or start further treatment.  The way our services and resources are currently configured means our staff struggle to provide the quality of care that our patients need. The challenge of managing the risk of COVID-19 infection during the recent pandemic exacerbated these problems.

“Investing in dedicated planned care facilities will reduce delays and help people to get the care they need, sooner. This is incredibly important for those needing urgent treatment, particularly for cancer, where earlier treatment leads to much better prospects for recovery.

“The plans to upgrade our acute hospital services will streamline delivery across two thriving hospital sites and improve care for everyone.”