Pro-campaigners for £27 million hospital plan celebrate a new era for healthcare in Ludlow (From Ludlow Advertiser)

Pro-campaigners for £27 million hospital plan celebrate a new era for healthcare in Ludlow

12:31pm Thursday 31st May 2012 in News By Adrian Kibbler

MORE than a million miles of car journeys a year will be saved when Ludlow’s new £27 million hospital and health village opens.

And the proposed opening date for the flagship facility is March 2014, with work beginning in July following the final approval of the plan by the Strategic Health Authority.

The hospital and health village end the need for long distance travel to hospitals in Shrewsbury and Hereford for sick patients.

“This is really going to transform lives,” said Peter Corfield, chairman of the Ludlow Hospital League of Friends.

“People undergoing difficult treatment will no longer face debilitating journeys.”

In the past seven years Peter Corfield estimates that he has attended in the order of 600 meetings in connection with LudlowHospital.

It is intended that the facility will provide kidney dialysis, saving people from Ludlow and south Shropshire the trip to Shrewsbury as often as every other day.

There are also plans for the hospital to provide chemotherapy for people suffering from cancer.

Health chiefs say that the number of outpatients that can be treated will increase sixfold over the number currently treated at the Ludlow Community Hospital.

The number of inpatient beds will be 36 which is an increase from the 28 that had originally been envisaged.

New diagnostic treatments will be available that can currently only be provided at larger hospitals such as Shrewsbury.

And there will also be a suite of rooms funded by the league of friends for use of the family and carers of people receiving palliative treatmen.

In the week before the final go ahead was given by the Strategic Health Authority meeting in Cambridge two key hurdles were jumped, after campaigners battling to keep a surgery in the town had finally agreed to step aside to ensure the plan was approved.

The SALT campaign had split the town over the plan to locate all health provision on the new health village site.

Firstly the Community Health Trust gave its unanimous approval when it met at Ludlow Assembly Rooms and five days later the Primary Care Trust meeting at Ludlow Assembly Rooms said yes.

News of the approval from the Strategic Health Authority came hours before the Olympic Torch passed through Ludlow in glorious summer sunshine.