We had a meeting tonight (Mon 12/12/16) of the joint committee representing the two CCGs that had a terms of reference, and delegated authority, to take forward the acute portion of the STP (Future Fit). The meeting was held in public because we had threatened legal action if it wasn't.

The proposal is essentially to close one of our two A&Es, and downgrade its associated District General Hospital. The meeting tonight was supposed to agree a process of consultation to start on Jan 12.

Telford & Wrekin CCG were pissed off because the recommendation coming to the meeting was that the preferred option for the acute hospital was Shrewsbury. Their public position coming in to the meeting was go ahead with consultation but without a preferred option. Shropshire's position was just go ahead.

The committee was a 6-6 split in composition, with a non-voting independent chair. We guessed that the compromise would be go ahead with the consultation with a preferred option that was not really preferred (while other working was going on).

But that shifted in the meeting. We had 45 minutes of public contribution before the vote. There were well over 100 members of the public there - mostly mobilised by us and Telford & Wrekin Labour Group. We argued for no consultation because the options produced didn't meet the requirements of safe patient care. Lots of people spoke. Campaign speakers got a tremendous response including a standing ovation for Gill George. The proposal shifted to no to consultation starting and reference back to the Programme Board. T&W voted for that, so with deadlock that is effectively what happened. They now will have to take a couple of months to come up with alternative proposals. They won't be good because of the financial crisis, but they were never going to be good anyway. At least we have delayed the cuts yet again.

T&W Council were positive. The Leader (Labour) spoke about the need for 2 A&Es and more funding. The local Tory MPs are apparently facilitating a meeting with Hunt in January to ask for an increase in funding.

At the end of the meeting, the SRO for Future Fit (who is also the AO for T&W CCG) ran off refusing to be interviewed by the media. We got at least 1 TV and 3 radio interviews.

Not the war - but we won the battle.

Pete