Members of health campaign group Save Our Acute Services have launched an ambitious five point plan to restore emergency general surgery at the South West Acute Hospital.
The plan includes setting up a new NHS Trust for the South West area, in response to what it calls the Western Trust’s ‘failure in its duty of care to patients and staff’.
The five point plan follows weeks of research from the group and collaboration with a group of medical professionals, who Save our Acute Services say have fully endorsed the plan.
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The plan is the group’s response to the management of the Western Health and Social Care Trust, who had called for the local community to come forward with ideas to save the service.
Emergency general surgery services were suspended by the local health trust in December after it said it could not recruit enough consultant surgeons to operate a rota safely.
The five point plan includes the creation of a new South Western health trust, the restoration of emergency general surgery at the SWAH with Department of Health assistance with the rota and ‘new initiatives to ensure a settled workforce’.
It also proposes new surgical specialities to be introduced to the hospital, in addition to the relaunch of five theatres to provide emergency and elective care to meet local and regional needs.
A public consultation is currently underway on the future of emergency general surgery and is due to end on 10 April.
Trust officials have consistently said it is not safe to run the service without the required number of consultants, and have highlighted the use of the hospital as an overnight elective surgery centre as a major win for the hospital.
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