26th. January 2012.
Throughout 2011, rumours about the future of the children’s ward at St. John’s Hospital were a cause for concern. We now have evidence that senior clinicians raised this issue with NHS management. Despite raising these concerns, there is little evidence that anything positive was done.
Now we learn that the Dean of Postgraduate Medicine, Professor Reid, has decided to withdraw all paediatric trainees with effect from 4 th. April. This will have serious consequences for St. John’s. The senior medics have already said they cannot cope with the existing trainees in place, but without them, the service is in danger of collapse.
Professor Reid and Mr. Farquarson, NHS Lothian’s Medical Director attended the St. John’s Hospital Stakeholders Group in December last year, accompanied by Dr. Edward Doyle, theAssociate Divisional Medical Director, who made a presentation on the difficulties facing the service. At no time did anyone suggest that trainees would no longer be located at St. John’s.
We appreciate the staffing difficulties NHS Lothian has to manage. However, according to doctors at the hospital, this has been known about for several years. Clearly NHS have been relying on the dedication and goodwill of counsultants “acting down” and sleeping in to avoid a crisis. That was never sustainable, and their failure to address this issue has compounded an already difficult situation.
We were facing a major difficulty. If the lack of trainees caused serious concerns about the safety of service delivery, their withdrawal from April is now a crisis. But what is more worrying is that this letter has not been raised as a clinical governance issue through the Board’s reporting mechanism. This follows a disturbing pattern. In 2011, clinical governance concerns were raised with, and acknowledged by, the Medical Director Dr. Farquarson regarding cardiology. Yet nothing appears in the Clinical Governance Committee minutes.
Similarly, when a number of dermatology consultants raised “clinical governance and medico-legal” concerns in 2008 with the then Medical Director, Dr. Swainson, there are no minutes to show that this was taken through the governance structure. It appears that, at best, St. John’s doesn’t merit a mention, except when there were issues with the bakery!
The sustainability of the children’s ward is absolutely essential. It underpins a range of other acute services without which all the joined up writing in theworld won’t prevent St. John’s being downgrade again. This is a serious blow to the future of St. John’s as an acute emergency hospital.
If the clinicians are concerned, so should we be. Read their comments below.
Councillors Gordon Beurskens and Ellen Glass.
Dear Dr Farquarson
We as a consultant group are writing to you directly to outline our concerns about our ability to provide a full time quality paediatric and neonatal service to the paediatric and obstetric patients of West Lothian.
We are now concerned that we cannot continue to guarantee continuity of care and safe clinical care at all times of the day and night. There are significant problems guaranteeing safe and continuous care out of hours.
The problems staffing a safe paediatric and neonatal service in St Johns Hospital have increased over the last 2-3 years but have become particularly acute in the last 3 months. Looking forward we do not see the situation changing in the near future.
Gaps in out of hours cover are increasingly filled by current senior medical staff carrying out extra duty. We do not think this a sustainable solution.
Over the years a number of possible solutions have been discussed, including advanced nurse practitioners and specialist non-consultant grade doctors working with us to provide full and safe 24 hour service. Unfortunately we have been unable to attract suitable medical staff and the nurse practitioner approach has been not been adequately realised to date.
As a group of paediatric consultant doctors we remain committed to providing a safe and continuous clinical service to our client population in West Lothian.
We look forward to your considered response and would value the opportunity to meet you and your team to discuss the situation, in the near future.
25th. October 2011.
Following the Sunday Times front page coverage of NHS Lothian's patients being offered surgery as far afield as Harrogate and Northumberland, they have gone into a tailspin of denial and obfuscation.
The question of patients being offered surgery elsewhere was raised by me at the meeting of the St. John’s Hospital Stakeholders Group on 14 th. September. As previously reported on this website, we have serious concerns about taking patients elsewhere, when a moderate investment at our local hospital would secure further surgical services there.
What is interesting is that at the September meeting, Sandra Mair, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at NHS Lothian, undertook to bring figures to the next meeting. At the October meeting of the Group, no additional figures were provided. No information was provided.
It was therefore interesting, to put it mildly, to read that according to Jackie Sansbury the Chief Operating Officer NHS Lothian don’t have figures for those patients offered remote alternative locations for their operations, so to what extent they are massaging the figures remains a mystery.
But wait! Hold the front page! I hear today that they have miraculously found the figures, and that the numbers are “small”. So small in fact that they couldn’t find them in the first place!
NHS Lothian really needs to get hold of itself. This has all the hallmarks of the ACS debacle earlier this year, where they were forced into another humiliating climb-down. If they can’t deal with this issue effectively, then heaven help them when the next instalment is released!
Councillor Gordon Beurskens.
Action to Save St. John’s Hospital.
Whitburn & Blackburn Ward (7)
27th September 2011
Hiding the truth
In the past 8 weeks, we have been asked about a number of cases where patients had been offered surgery at hospitals as far away as Northumberland. At the September meeting of the St. John’s Hospital Stakeholders Group, Sandra Mair, Director of Operations for St. John’s was asked about the reliance being placed by NHS Lothian on other hospitals. Given that the “pound follows the patient”, it seems extraordinary that in these times of budget pressures, NHS Lothian are paying for surgery elsewhere...
Read the full article here
25th September 2011
Congratulations to St. John’s Hospital and a huge thanks on behalf of the community.
Results from the 2011 Inpatient Patient Experience Survey were published last week. The results show a huge improvement in the overall patient experience at St. John’s, with above the Scottish average results in a number of areas.
Read the full statement here
25th September 2011
Meeting of West Lothian Council 6th. September 2011.
AMENDMENT.
West Lothian Council recognises the rights of campaign groups to highlight anecdotal evidence of concern to the wider community, but strongly asserts that comparative data is essential to ensure informed debate.
Council notes that progress has been made at the Royal Infirmary..
Read the full statement here
21st. September 2011.
Operation Magnetise-Statement by Cllr. Gordon Beurskens.
After my statement on this site of 16 th. July, news reached me about the planning matters this case was supposedly about. At the risk of provoking further knee-jerk reaction in the absence of a case, the following is an update.
The Procurator Fiscal has recently engaged in the precognition of witnesses before reaching a decision on proceedings. My view of the timescale of this cannot be translated into readable form, except to say it is despicable. After almost three years, and in the run-up to the 2012 local elections, they are finally making their moves.
This case is predicated on..
Read the full statement here..
Printable PDF version |
