A&E Provision: Shropshire and Mid-Wales

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right. In fact, my colleague from just across the border, my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), always joins us at our meetings with our hospital trust. We almost think of him as a Salopian. [Hon. Members: “Steady!”] Not quite, but he does so much to represent his constituents in Wales, who already have to travel long distances to get to the Royal Shrewsbury hospital. He might correct me if I am wrong, but I think that some of them, from the extreme west of his constituency, already have to travel for over an hour to access A&E services in Shrewsbury. So any movement even further away from Shrewsbury would be completely unacceptable to his constituents.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I come from a peripheral position, further to the west of Montgomeryshire. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and stress the importance of getting this right, because it has an impact further to the west. If this issue is not resolved, it will impact on the capacity of my district general hospital in Aberystwyth to serve the people of mid-Wales as well. It is crucial to address this issue.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I concur with the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful for his intervention.

I shall start to end because I want to give the Minister as much time as possible to answer these questions. Let us not forget that if we get this right, it could result in an investment of £300 million into the NHS in Shropshire. I do not know about all my colleagues—I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire has been an MP for longer than me—but I certainly do not remember a time during my 11 years as an MP when we have had such an investment in the local NHS. As I say, if we get this right, we could see an investment of £300 million in Shropshire to implement these changes.

I know that there is more work to be done to secure this money. I know that more work will have to be done in innovative ways, both locally and nationally, to secure all the funding. If we do not sort ourselves out, however, we are going to get further and further behind, while other areas in the United Kingdom—this is not an issue peculiar to Shropshire—that are going through this process in a more cordial and mutually effective way are going to jump the queue, and Shropshire will be left right at the end. I am not prepared to see that happen.

Finally, Telford Council would obviously have us believe that as part of this programme, women and children’s services have to be moved from Telford to Shrewsbury, because the main A&E will need to have women’s and children’s services next to the main A&E provider at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital. The council says—this is an important point that I want the Minister to note—that because these services were moved from Shrewsbury to Telford a few years ago, such a move would lead to the waste of £28 million. It repeatedly talks about this through the local media. No, no, no. It is not a waste. The building will be used for other purposes, and all the equipment in it, which is easily moved, will be moved to Royal Shrewsbury hospital. So I refute any proposal that there has been a waste of the £28 million invested in women’s and children’s services because of the changes that will take place.