Suspension of emergency services at SWAH

The Western Trust have announced that there will be no emergency general surgery available at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH), Enniskillen from December 18, 2022.

Today (Thursday), at a ‘special trust board meeting’, a decision was reached that confirmed that emergency (unplanned) general surgery could not be safely sustained due to another critical resignation within the general surgery team.

Speaking after the meeting, Geraldine McKay, Director of Acute Services at the Western Trust, said the following.

“At our trust board meeting today, we updated trust board members on the current position and in particular a further resignation received from another consultant in the general surgery team.

“This now means that we will not be in a position to provide an emergency (unplanned) general surgical rota from December 18, 2022.”

She continued, “Despite our previous and ongoing efforts to recruit, we have not been successful to date in securing the necessary consultant workforce.

“The Trust is therefore now unable to maintain the required workforce to sustain and deliver a safe emergency (unplanned) general surgical service to our population from SWAH.

“Put simply, we cannot provide an emergency general surgery service without a consultant surgical team in place to provide the required 24/7 cover.”

Ms McKay went on to say that a suspension of the relevant services was ‘necessary to protect public health/safety’.

“The current rota for emergency general surgery will be maintained up until December 4, 2022. Planned elective surgery at the hospital will continue.”

As well as that, she emphasised that there would be no change to the Emergency Department (Type 1) which will continue to operate on a 24/7 basis. There will be minimal to no impact on the other existing services at SWAH.

Explaining how the disaster will be mitigated, she said,

“We have developed and will implement alternative clinical patient pathways to mitigate risk and protect the safety of people needing to avail of emergency general surgery services after the current rota ends and are focused on minimising the impact of this temporary arrangement on the hospital’s acute services. We will communicate the clinical patient pathways in the coming days.

“We are liaising with our colleagues in the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and the Southern Health and Social Care Trust on the new arrangements.”

Commenting on longer term plans, Western Trust Chief Executive, Neil Guckian said, “We need to fully utilise all of our theatre capacity across SWAH to undertake more elective procedures, and we are delighted to work with the Department to develop SWAH as an overnight elective surgery centre to benefit the growing numbers of patients on our waiting lists.

Guckian, who has recently become the subject of a motion tabled at Fermanagh and Omagh District Cuncil calling for him to resign, continued, “I would like to pay tribute to our surgical teams for their continued commitment despite these mounting pressures and thank staff at SWAH for their flexibility in supporting these temporary arrangements.”

“I want to reassure the local community that the Trust is fully committed to developing and enhancing SWAH as an essential part of the Western Trust and regional hospital network. SWAH has a very busy emergency department, fantastic facilities and a wide range of very vibrant specialties.

“We ask for public support and understanding as we continue to work through the challenges to develop a solution that meets the future needs of our population.  We will be carrying out a full public consultation on this temporary change including seeking views on how emergency general surgery might be restored, and will outline the details of consultation process in the coming weeks.

“Extensive work will be undertaken to inform patients of the change to general surgery services, including public advertising, posters and social media messaging.”