A decision on the temporary suspension of overnight Accident and Emergency services at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford will be taken tomorrow.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) Board is being recommended to make the decision to suspend services between 8pm and 8am.
It follows shortages in specialist A&E staff stretching back to 2015, which has affected SaTH’s two Emergency Department sites in Telford and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Shrewsbury.
The Trust says that despite some recent success in recruiting consultants the position remains fragile.
Should the proposal be approved then the Princess Royal Hospital A&E department will be closed to ambulance admissions at 8pm with ambulances diverted to neighbouring Trusts.
The Urgent Care Centre will accept patients until 8pm and the PRH would continue to accept GP referred admissions in those specialities managed at PRH between 8am and 8pm, seven-days-a-week
Stroke patients arriving by ambulance will be admitted via a direct pathway to the appropriate clinical ward.
Simon Wright, Chief Executive at SaTH, said: “Though this is a very complex change to make, we’re doing it for patient safety. We haven’t arrived at this position lightly.”
“We must once again emphasise that we have done everything we can to avoid reaching this point, including continued national and international recruitment for medical and nursing staff and extending the recruitment of Emergency Nurse Practitioners. We have reviewed shift patterns in order to best meet times of high demand.”
Dr Kevin Eardley, Consultant Renal Physician and Medical Director for Unscheduled Care, said: “We will be taking all steps possible to ensure that our plan minimises the impact of additional travel for patients, but we have to put patient safety first.
“The proposal will clearly have an impact on other services – including Women and Children’s services, stroke services, critical care and head and neck services – but our plans have been created and tested to ensure the impact on our patients is kept to the absolute minimum.”
“This is not something we ever wanted to implement, however, the care of our patients must come before every other consideration, and we cannot continue to look after our population safely, kindly and with the dignity they deserve with our current staffing levels and the demand we face every day.”
A date for the temporary overnight closure is still to be decided but it is most likely to be in the second half of October or early November.
The Trust says that if approved, overnight suspension of A&E services at the PRH would be kept under review.
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