Helen pledges to fight for community care after Whitchurch Hospital visit

Health campaigner and North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan has pledged to fight for improved community care after a visit to Whitchurch Community Hospital, where she discussed the challenges facing Shropshire’s NHS.

Whitchurch Hospital is operated by Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust and provides a wide range of services to the local area. These include community midwifery, a minor injuries unit, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and a rehabilitation ward.

The type of patients normally seen by the hospital include people who do not need acute hospital care but may need rehabilitation before returning home.

Helen Morgan MP has long argued that investment is needed in community and primary care to combat long ambulance waiting times and ensure residents can access the support they need without having to call 999.

Helen discussed staffing recruitment challenges in rural areas, and saw the bustling reception and ward transfer area in action during her time on site.

Now she is reiterating her pledge to campaign for improved community care services.

Helen Morgan, MP for North Shropshire, said, “Care in the community is crucial in keeping people healthy, helping them stay in their home, and reducing the need for more urgent care.

“It is clear that we need to take community health services more seriously and invest to get the staffing levels we need for a large rural county.

“Whitchurch Hospital is a great example of community care in action. The team there work incredibly hard both in the building itself and the wider area to provide a high-quality service, despite being under increasing pressure from increased costs and real-terms cuts to their funding.

“Decades of centralisation, including the closure of community hospitals, have not helped rural communities, because care is best provided as close to home as possible. That policy failure needs to be properly addressed if we are going to get rural areas like ours the fair deal that they deserve.”