The coronavirus crisis has provided a platform to rethink how healthcare in Shropshire can be changed in the future, a county NHS chief has said.

In a message to a health trust, David Evans, the accountable officer for both of the county’s clinical commissioning groups, said work is already underway to bring back high-priority services that were suspended to focus on fight Covid-19.

But, he said, that pause “has also given us the opportunity to think very carefully about how these services are delivered, and whether there are aspects that can be delivered differently so as to support the new normal”.

Mr Evans is quoted by Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust chief executive David Stout in a report due to go before the trust’s board on Thursday, June 4.

Mr Evans wrote: “We are all still working very hard across many areas of response to the virus, including testing those who have suspected Covid-19 symptoms, including our own staff and those in care homes, making sure we have enough personal protective equipment for all local services now and in the coming days and weeks, and making sure our employees are supported during this difficult time.

“But we are also looking to how and when we can bring back other local health and care services.

“This is our Restore and Recovery Plan, which is a single plan for Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and is being developed across all health and care organisations."

Mr Stout writes: “Our core responsibilities in the restoration phase are to continue to provide essential community health services and sustain our hospital discharge services.

“To date we have restored an element of the health visiting services which we had temporarily suspended and have ensured our school nursing services will be ready to support schools as they start to re-open.”

He writes that the trust has “played an important role over the last few weeks in providing antigen testing for NHS staff and other key workers”.

“We have prioritised the services that we will bring back and we are working to make this happen as quickly and a safely as possible," he adds.

"But the pause in their delivery and the current situation with coronavirus has also given us the opportunity to think very carefully about how these services are delivered, and whether there are aspects that can be delivered differently so as to support the new normal."