Stuart Anderson’s campaign to enhance public services gathers pace as Health Minister visits Ludlow Community Hospital
Stuart Anderson’s campaign to improve public services gathered pace as he welcomed the Minister for Health and Secondary Care The Rt Hon Andrew Stephenson CBE MP to Shropshire together with Philip Dunne MP. The Minister visited Ludlow Eco Park to find out more about plans to improve health provision in the local area. They then visited Ludlow Community Hospital where Philip and Minister Stephenson attended a roundtable with local health stakeholders.
Stuart has made enhancing our public services a key part of his plan for South Shropshire, an integral component of which is ensure that funding improves NHS provision in the county. So Stuart was delighted to welcome Minister Stephenson to Ludlow to discuss these plans in detail, alongside Ludlow MP Philip Dunne.
Shropshire residents are already set to benefit from a range of schemes investing in local healthcare facilities. Philip Dunne, who is retiring as MP at the next General Election, played an instrumental role in securing £312 million for the Hospital Transformation Programme in Shropshire.
This reconfiguration project will make the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital a specialist emergency care site and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford a dedicated planned care site with both sites providing urgent treatment centres, diagnostics, outpatient clinics, midwife-led maternity services, frail and elderly services, and day case chemotherapy. This should enable greater capacity for patients with immediate or very serious life-threatening illness or injury at the emergency department at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
To help deliver additional diagnostic capacity in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, the area’s first Community Diagnostic Centre opened to patients in October 2023 and provides additional MRI, CT, ultrasound and cardio-respiratory testing capacity across a range of modalities as well as a hub and spoke model for tele-dermatology services, benefiting patients with more convenient access to diagnostic checks, tests and scans, in a setting closer to their home.
Across England, the centres have now delivered more than 7 million tests, checks and scans - backed by £2.3 billion, the largest cash investment in MRI and CT scanning capacity in the history of the NHS. In the Spring Budget, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced further funding for 100 new AI-fitted MRI scanners to help doctors deliver results more quickly and accurately to 130,000 patients every year. These will be funded through the landmark £4.2 billion Public Sector Productivity Plan, under which the NHS will be given £3.4 billion to double investment in its digital transformation including IT upgrades and AI investment.
Stuart Anderson said:
“It was an honour to welcome Health Minister Andrew Stephenson to Shropshire alongside Philip Dunne MP to find out more about our plans to improve local health provision and visit Ludlow Community Hospital. Philip has been a tireless campaigner for better healthcare facilities, having played an instrumental role in securing £312 million for the Hospital Transformation Programme in Shropshire. I will endeavour to continue Philip's fine work on this issue. If we keep this momentum going, we can continue to improve our public services to secure their long-term future. I will champion all the many issues we face in South Shropshire especially areas such as greater investment in our health services.”
