One Shropshire A&E could close imminently in staffing crisis, chief warns
The loss of one more consultant will lead to the immediate closure of one of Shropshire's two A&E wards, a leading health chief has warned.
"Remedial action" will have to be taken if staffing levels in the emergency wards are hit any further, David Evans, chief officer for Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group has warned.
He was speaking at a meeting of Telford & Wrekin CCG, the group that buys in health services for the borough.
The meeting heard that Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust now had just five A&E consultants between the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal Hospital.
Mr Evans made his comments after calls from David Sandbach, former chief executive of the Princess Royal, to close one A&E immediately.
"We should close an A&E on a temporary basis," Mr Sandbach said.
"They did so in Chorley when they went down from 14 consultants to eight, they closed the doors.
"If we had eight consultants in Shropshire the CCG here would be on cloud nine. We have got five covering two places. I actually believe you guys are putting patients at risk."
Mr Evans replied: "It is absolutely clear that if SaTH, for whatever reason, were short of another consultant they would have to take remedial action.
"However it is continuing to deliver services at the moment while being constantly monitored by both CCGs and the regulatory bodies."
Mr Evans said recruiting consultants to boost the numbers was still proving "very difficult".
He said: "We currently have five A&E consultants across two sites. The current on-call rota for them is something like one in four.
"At Stoke, for instance by comparison, it is something like one in 14 or 15. It doesn't take a genius to work out which one they are going to apply for. And there are a lot of jobs around to choose from."
Mr Evans insisted that, despite the staffing situation, the number of people being seen within four hours or less at A&E was actually improving.
The Government gold standard is 95 per cent. "There has been something of a recovery with A&E performance this month," Mr Evans said.
"We are not hitting 95 per cent – but we are certainly up in the 90s."
