Three community hospitals could be closed under plans to tackle a £36 million health cash crisis.
A report into NHS services across Shropshire has suggested shutting hospitals in Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Whitchurch to £2.4 million a year.
Either the Royal Shrewsbury or Telford's Princess Royal Hospital may lose its A&E department and be downgraded to a "non-emergency site" focusing on elective surgery and cancer care.
Other options mooted by Finnamore Management Consultants, who produced the report, include cutting the number of on-call doctors and treating more patients as day cases to cut bed occupancy rates from 95 to 85 per cent.
By March, 2006, three of the county's four health trusts - Shropshire County Primary Care Trust, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, and the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital NHS Trust - will face a total deficit of £36 million.
Telford and Wrekin PCT has predicted it will break even by the end of the financial year.
Programme director Clive Walsh, who is heading the review, stressed no firm proposals had been tabled at this stage
Public consultation set to begin in late January 2006.
Last month hospital bosses for Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which employs 5,500 staff, admitted they would have to make job cuts as part of the savings plan.
A similar exercise is underway at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Plans to save £20 million include the possible downgrading of the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch where the A&E department is under threat.
