Bishop's Castle residents celebrate the success of their campaign as hospital beds reopen

This week's reopening of the hospital beds at Bishop's Castle Community Hospital felt like a real example of 'people power' in action.

The 16 beds closed 'temporarily' back in October 2021 because a lack of staff meant it was unsafe to keep them open.

But after nearly two years of closure and no sign of reopening, local residents started campaigning to change that last August.

Their actions prompted the Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust to commit to reopening the beds if a recruitment drive was successful and locals joined forces with the Trust to run recruitment days into the new year.

One Healthcare Assistant told me she saw the campaign on the TV and applied because she thought Bishop's Castle looked like 'a great community' and she wanted to be 'part of the change.'

She was one of many who applied and the success of the recruitment days meant that in April the Trust agreed to reopen the inpatient unit, to tears of joy from Bishop's Castle residents.

The reason they want the beds so much is because the town is in rural Shropshire, close to the Welsh border.

It's a good 30 minute drive to the nearest other community hospital in Ludlow and 40 and 50 minutes respectively to the acute services at Shrewsbury and Telford.

Public transport between the places is few and far between and not everyone drives. Therefore having some inpatient services on the doorstep makes a huge difference.

That is now happening again from Monday, with the expectation that by the end of next week all 16 beds will be filled.

The people in them will be either elderly people who need rehabilitation, or people in Shropshire needing end of life care.

They'll either be treated in one of the four-bedded wards, or individual private rooms.

All have been re-equipped, after the previous equipment was moved to other sites when the unit closed.

Staff are a mix of newly recruited and those returning to the site after having to go elsewhere in October 2021.

They'll be under the charge of Ward Manager Amanda Houghton, a nurse who lives in the town and who has great enthusiasm to provide a great service.

For the past two weeks she has been leading an induction programme that has also served as a team building session and she told me that she's not worried that they will suffer from lack of staffing again, like they did three years ago.

Amanda said: "Just looking at the team over the past fortnight when they have been working full time, they are very dedicated, they are very motivated, they are excited that we are opening the inpatient beds."

The Bishop's Castle residents feel the same excitement. They have fought hard to get the beds reopened and will do all they can to keep them open.

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