Save Community Hospital beds - says Chris Naylor

Former Councillor Chris Naylor, the new Parliamentary Candidate for South Shropshire (Liberal Democrats), is giving his backing to the ’Save Bishops Castle Community Hospital beds’ campaign. 

“At the weekend I joined over a hundred other patients, doctors, councillors signing the important recent 'Defend Rural Health Care' letter.  I very much welcome the work of Gill George and Darren Childs on these issues.

"And I’m today writing in support focusing on three key points:

• Reopen the closed beds at Bishops Castle
• Commit to ongoing local services at all our local community hospitals - Bridgnorth and Ludlow as well as Bishops Castle
• Agree up-to-date ‘Rural Strategies’ with our health providers to address the particular contexts of Shropshire’s rural communities. 

“We know that shortage of beds has been blamed for the bed-blocking that's made for awful ambulance and response time backlogs. We need more beds not fewer right now. And we know too that one of the big problems tackling Covid was lack of beds - if there’s another pandemic we’ll be kicking ourselves if we’ve just closed beds.

“But it's not just about beds. At the Bishops Castle meeting on June 5th I asked two questions to clarify the local health services provided there - but health staff couldn’t or wouldn’t say. I asked a ‘Public Question’ about these services - and in Ludlow and Bridgnorth too - to Shropshire Council’s Health Committee a fortnight ago on July 4th, and I still haven’t had a response. I look forward to having the opportunity to discuss with Simon Whitehouse at the NHS and Patricia Davies at ShropCom.”

Chris Naylor has lived by the Long Mynd in All Stretton since 2016. He’s a former member of his local Patients Participation Group and two of his family trained as doctors.