Shropshire Councillors have expressed their disappointment with the Shropshire Community Health Trust (ShropCom) yet again at tonight’s engagement meeting . They failed to answer questions on just how hard they have been looking for new hospital staff and what they had done to attract them.
Cllr Ruth Houghton (Bishops Castle Division) said “It’s pretty obvious that ShropCom has struggled with this whole engagement process from the start. Any meaningful engagement needed a full and comprehensive assessment of the impact of the withdrawal of health service provision on the community it serves. This is particularly the case in rural areas like ours where alternative sources of treatment are far away, and public transport is poor. It appears that so far, the views of family carers do not seem to be included”.
Heather added: “It’s equally obvious that minimal effort has been made to recruit additional staff to the hospital. Apart from a brief attempt at recruitment in April 2022, they have been ignoring our attempts to co-operate on a publicity drive to get more staff. We hope that the review on this announced tonight will look at this with an open mind and suggest improvements.”
“Frankly, it seems that they have had no intention of keeping beds at Bishops Castle Hospital all along.”
Local GP Adrian Penney closed the meeting with a presentation to Patricia Davies CEO of ShropCom. A box full of completed surveys decked in the Bishops Castle Charter celebration colours which recognise 450 years of Bishop’s Castle is able to make its own decisions (see photo
).