Nurses Boost for Bishop’s Castle Patients

Aug 15, 2017

Bishop’s Castle Community Hospital’s nurses, therapists and health support workers are boosting the support provided to patients by local doctors.
A pilot to provide enhanced healthcare, initiated by the Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (Shropcom), will support patients and help to prevent admissions for treatment at the county’s acute hospitals in Shrewsbury and Telford.

At the same time patients leaving hospital will be provided with enhanced care and support at home and hopefully some will be able to leave earlier because of the extra local home-based support.

Staff from Bishop’s Castle Community Hospital volunteered for this work during the temporary closure of the hospital for essential building works over the next 10 to 12 weeks. The remaining hospital in-patients were transferred into the community at the end of July.

Dr. Adrian Penney, of Bishop’s Castle Medical Practice, said: “The doctors and nurses will be working 8 till 8 for seven days per week. More staff. More hours. More care.

“In Bishop’s Castle we are proud of the close working between the surgery and Shropcom, the Shropshire Community Health Trust.

“We are looking forward to the highly motivated and talented nurses working from the surgery.”

Steve Gregory, Director of Nursing and Operations at Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, praised the local initiative to provide enhanced care and support in the community.

“It is great to see the Community Hospital staff so committed to working with the doctors whilst we carry out essential building works at the hospital. I am also delighted that the Patients Group will be assisting us in the evaluation of this way of working.

“I want to assure you that in the meantime any patient needing support in a community hospital will be cared for at one of our other hospitals.”

The close involvement of the Patients Group follows over two years of campaigning for local action to make the best-integrated use of the health services in southwest Shropshire and eastern Montgomeryshire.

Jan Arriens, Chair of the Group, welcomed the initiative of the Doctors and nurses.

“Patients generally prefer to be treated at home only going to hospital when it is absolutely necessary,” he said. “They want a health and care service wrapped around their general practice. So this is a welcome first step on which we aim to build.”