Telford hospital’s A&E could close overnight from next month, health campaigners claim

Gill George, from Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin Defend Our NHS, said a source at the Princess Royal Hospital believes the overnight closure of the department could be imminent.

The move would leave Shropshire with a single A&E unit at night, based at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

Today Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which runs both hospitals, insisted no decisions have been made and it is doing all it can to avoid the overnight closure of Telford’s A&E department.

Earlier this year, a report going to the hospital board stated it should start drawing up plans due to staffing shortages. Health bosses said because of the low number of consultants in their A&E departments, the trust was not in a position to deliver safe and effective departments on both sites.

Ms George claims SaTH intends to transfer staff overnight from PRH to the RSH, which will reduce dependence on locum staffing.

She said the overnight A&E closure at PRH could potentially mean that, between 8pm and 8am, ill children are taken first to the A&E at Shrewsbury, for immediate treatment. But, she claims, RSH lacks the facilities to care for them, so they would need to be returned to PRH for ongoing medical and nursing care.

She added: “We hope the plans to close the A&E at Princess Royal are dropped – whether it’s overnight or on a permanent basis. The existing A&E problems reflect a national workforce crisis, and aren’t going to be solved by leaving patients facing a complete lottery on access to life-saving care. Our two A&Es cover an area of more than 2,000 square miles – 19 times the size of Birmingham. We need both of them.”

Debbie Kadum, chief operating officer at SaTH, said it is committed to maintaining services at both the PRH and RSH. But she added sometimes it had to make tough decisions to ensure all its patients are safe at all times.

“The potential overnight closure of A&E at PRH is one such topic,” she said. “However, no decisions have been made.” and we are doing all we can to avoid having to close A&E at PRH overnight.”

“We must have business continuity plans in place for our A&Es – like other services – to ensure we have a plan in place so that we can still run them safely should we reach a tipping point, such as consultants or locums leaving as our staffing levels are already stretched in this area. We would be failing in our duties if we didn’t have business continuity plans in place.

“These continuity plans for A&E have been led by our doctors and nurses and we have held a number of workshops – the next of which is taking place on August 11 – in which we have welcomed the input and views of a wide range of stakeholders, including patient representatives, to shape these proposals. Before any decision can be made the final service model would need to be approved and it would take a minimum of three months to enact the plan.”

Ms Kadum explained that Shrewsbury is a designated trauma unit so the A&E there must stay open 24-7.

“This is why our business continuity planning suggests closing A&E overnight at PRH,” she added.

“Without one trauma unit in the county many more patients would have to travel to neighbouring hospitals for their care, as they currently do if they have sustained major trauma or other life-threatening cardiac events.

“None of us want this to happen; we want to keep as much care safely in the county that we can.”

Ms Kadum said the main issue the hospital trust has is around staffing after one of its A&E consultants left the trust in December last year.

“This means we have five substantive A&E consultants to cover both PRH and RSH.

“These are supported by four locum consultants, who we often have to pay a premium to attract and retain.

“They can also leave with minimum one-week’s notice if they wish as they are not on a permanent contract.

“The Royal College of Emergency Medicine says that seven day coverage by consultants between 8am and midnight each day requires a minimum of 10 consultants in each A&E department, rising to 16 or more in larger units. So we should have 20.

“We have five substantive staff and four locums, which isn’t enough for even one site,” she added.