Two years ago, the 16 in-patient beds at Bishop’s Castle Community Hospital were closed due to the Hospital being unable to recruit enough staff to operate the beds safely. These beds provide a vital service to this rural community and are an important part of the local NHS provision.
The ‘Save our Beds’ campaign has been set up to raise the profile of the issue and make every effort to recruit the necessary staff so the hospital can resume this important community service. This campaign has gathered a large amount of local and national support and been successful in persuading the Shropshire Community Health Trust Board to renew and redouble recruitment efforts.
Several recruitment events have been set up for people to drop in and register interest, with interviews available on the day. Two of these events have already taken place with great results so far.
Stuart Anderson, Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, recently met with those involved with the campaign. Stuart spoke to Patricia Davies, CEO of Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust as well as Jenny Sargent, chair of Bishop’s Castle Save Our Beds campaign (both pictured). Also pictured are two nurses Amey Cartwright and Jack Phillips who Stuart managed to speak to. Stuart listened to the fantastic effort that is going into this campaign and the success of the recruitment drive so far.
Stuart Anderson says:
“It was a lovely morning visiting Bishops Castle Community Hospital at the recruitment drive recently. A huge amount of work is going into recruiting enough qualified nurses to ensure that the hospital can continue to serve the local community as it has done for so many years. Save our Beds and the Shropshire Community Health Trust are doing an excellent job working together to recruit enough people to continue operating the hospital.
There are two more recruitment days on the 12th January and the 24th February. I would encourage anyone who is thinking about this to come along to these days and find out more.”
To find job vacancies online go to https://www.shropscommunityhealth.nhs.uk/jobs