Mr Mark Cheetham, a surgeon at the hospitals, has publicly accused Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Defend Our NHS of ‘scaremongering’ when we said cancer care could be lost from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. It’s an outrageous accusation, and one we absolutely reject. We do not ‘scaremonger’. We quoted current material published by the Future Fit Programme and by the hospital trust itself. The most recent publicly available material from local NHS leaders shows a very clear risk to the future provision of cancer care at the Royal Shrewsbury. It cannot be interpreted any other way.
There is a Future Fit video available here. The relevant section is from around 1:55. This states explicitly that cancer care will be provided from the Planned Care Centre, not the Emergency Centre – and an outline decision was taken on 23rd September that the Planned Care Centre will be Telford. The video is being extensively promoted by the Future Fit Comms team, with no suggestion that it may be wrong.
We have also seen a presentation given to Shropshire Patient Group in August by Julia Clarke, the hospital’s Director of Corporate Governance. The slide deck shows clearly that the Breast Centre and Ambulatory Oncology Care would be part of the Planned Care Centre (i.e. at Telford). This would include radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Someone from the hospital trust has contacted us and said there has been a ‘misunderstanding’. If so, this is solely because the hospital trust and Future Fit leaders have published and distributed incorrect information. We have simply shared the information produced by them. If they now say that their information is wrong, and wish to withdraw it, we will of course publicise any new position from them in due course. It seems obvious to us that we need high quality healthcare at BOTH our hospitals, Telford and Shrewsbury.
Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin Defend Our NHS 
Thanks for all your hard work the video proves the lies never stop. I hope the denial article in the local paper and the video are shown on TV just to show how far they will go, this is disgraceful behaviour they are playing with people’s lives and causing much anxiety across Shropshire. Future fit created the problem of fragmentation of services in 2011 they were warned on a signed declaration by all nine pediatricians and neonatologists that the move to PRH was unsafe and that it would cause serious fragmentation of services. They should all be sacked.
Maureen