Copthorne Hospital Land: a wasted opportunity?

Charles West, Liberal Democrat parliamentary Candidate for Shrewsbury and Atcham has claimed that Royal Shrewsbury Hospital is full of patients, with long admission run-in times and early discharge without adequate after care facilities.

Charles West, Liberal Democrat parliamentary Candidate for Shrewsbury and Atcham said "The hospital is full to bursting with patients, who often have to queue for admission if there are no beds. Even when admitted they may be moved from ward to ward to make room for others and they may be discharged when scarcely able to cope at home, or sent to convalesce at a Community Hospital over 30 miles away.

There is a desperate need for intermediate care beds in Shrewsbury. Since Monkmoor and Cross Houses Hospital closed over 20 years ago we have had a gap in the service. And the problem has got worse; there are more and more elderly patients and fewer beds available. The site of the old hospital at Copthorne South would have been ideal for some sort of community facility.

The Shrewsbury District Group of the CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) is concerned by the recent planning application for a care village on a green-field site between Shrewsbury and Bayston Hill. The CPRE believes that it would be much more appropriate for medical or social facilities of this kind to be built on the site of the old Copthorne Hospital South. This would accord with local planning policy HS11".