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Hospital Services (Shropshire)

This important debate is on the reconfiguration of hospital services in Shropshire, and in almost six years as Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury, I have never received so many letters, e-mails and telephone calls from concerned constituents over a single issue. Many of those calls have been emotional, and even though the consultation process is still ongoing, I feel it is my duty to use the platform that I have in the House of Commons to highlight a few of the concerns to the Minister. Part of the reconfiguration proposals would involve maternity and paediatric services moving from Shrewsbury to Telford. I want the Minister to imagine the geography of Shropshire and mid-Wales. The Royal Shrewsbury hospital covers not just the whole of Shropshire, but the whole of mid-Wales—a vast expanse just across the border. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) is present in the debate today. Picture the wheel of a bicycle, and at the centre, the spokes coming into the middle. That is where Shrewsbury is in the area. Now imagine moving paediatric and maternity services right to the edge of the wheel. How would that wheel function? Telford is at the edge of the area, on the extreme eastern border close to Staffordshire. What is the sense in moving services so far away from the rest of central Shropshire and mid-Wales? I am so passionate about this issue that I raised it during Prime Minister's Question Time last week. The Prime Minister referred to the importance of public engagement and consultation, which he said was a fundamental aspect of any reconfiguration proposals. Therefore, I have asked the chief executive and the primary care trust for a public meeting to be held in Shrewsbury on 11 February at the football stadium in our town. I believe that hundreds and hundreds of people will attend. I intend to make a transcript of that meeting and of all questions put to the PCT and the chief executive, and I will be sending that transcript to the Minister.