Service to leave rural South West Shropshire as another re-opens.
The Bishop’s Castle area have fought hard to keep their hospital which thankfully will now be opening on 15th July. It now seems the icing will be taken off that cake as the Bishop’s Castle surgery will be stopping doing blood tests in the near future.
Matthew Green , Parliamentary Candidate for the area said “ My Colleagues Councillors Ruth Houghton and Heather Kidd have fought hard with the community to keep services local to the people of the south west. I know that they are now working on this so that residents are not forced to drive to the Royal Shrewsbury to have essential blood tests. Rural people deserve to be able to access essential services as close to home as possible”.
Cancellation of blood tests could mean difficult journeys to Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth or Ludlow. These are distances of many miles and can take over an hour depending on where patients are sent.
Councillor Ruth Houghton (Bishop’s Castle) has been in touch with the Integrated Health Board and will follow up again on Monday. She said today “ I have been contacted by a number of local people today that have received text messages about the service stopping and who are very worried about this service ending. This is particularly serious as public transport to any other place for blood tests is either non-existent or poor. I will continue to work to keep these services here. It would seem sensible that these are now carried out by the hospital here when it re-opens next month.”
Cllr Heather Kidd (Chirbury and Worthen) added “ it is time that our health professionals work to reduce difficult travel and maximise the use of our very special Community Hospital. It really is pretty daft to be sending our residents to the highly congested Royal Shrewsbury Hospital where parking is so difficult and buses infrequent. I am sure that if the ICB rural proof this then it will become clear a local solution needs to be found.”