Planning permission for Shrewsbury hospital redevelopment

Planning approval has been given for changes to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital

Proposals for a hospital redevelopment have been given full planning permission.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust wants to rearrange services to make Shrewsbury a centre for emergency care and Telford a centre for planned care.

That includes a redesign of the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, which Shropshire councillors have backed.

Telford and Wrekin Council has opposed the changes.

The authority has argued Telford needs to keep a full accident and emergency department and its consultant-led women and children's department.

Those services would be downgraded if the move goes ahead, but the transformation programme was recently backed as the "best way forward" to improve acute services, by health minister Andrew Stephenson.

The plans approved by Shropshire Council involve the creation of a new building with an emergency department and consultant-led women and children's unit at the Shrewsbury site.

Dr Ed Rysdale, the trust's clinical lead for the transformation programme, which used to be known as Future Fit, said "real progress" was being made.

He also said the hospital trust was preparing to submit its full business case for the project.