Delays caused staffing issues for new surgery unit

The new surgery centre will admit its first patients on 10 June

Delays in getting a hospital day surgery centre built have led to staff finding jobs elsewhere.

The facility, at Telford's Princess Royal Hospital, was meant to open in 2023 and has cost £23m.

It will now be complete on 24 May, with the first patients due to be admitted on 10 June.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust said the opening of the new unit would reduce the number of operations that have to be cancelled due to emergency pressures.

The hospital's acting chief operating officer, Sara Biffen, said: “We have got a recruitment challenge at the PRH, we seem to be losing a lot of people to other organisations."

She said there had been a "variety of reasons" for the delays and as a result "people have gone elsewhere because the elective hub has not opened".

To get the centre open, the hospital has agreed to bring in staff from an outsourcing company.

Once opened, the hub will support day case procedures across a range of specialities including ear, nose and throat, maxillofacial, gynaecology, breast, orthopaedics and general surgery.

The development forms part of a planned reconfiguration of services in Telford and Shrewsbury which will see the Princess Royal become a specialist planned care site and the Royal Shrewsbury a centre for emergency medicine.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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