Despite the Western Trust detailing the pressures facing South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) and its emergency surgery, the latest jobs advertised for General Consultants Surgeons will not be based at the hospital.

Instead, they are ‘Trust-wide’ positions with the surgeons based at Altnagelvin.

And while the Trust has said there has been no decision made on withdrawing emergency surgery from the SWAH, it seems to be a case of when and not if as the job description for the four posts states: “The Western Trust are currently undertaking a Review of General Surgery. This is a Trust-wide recruitment exercise.

“It is envisaged that emergency general surgery may need to be facilitated at Altnagelvin Hospital. Elective sessions will be

available at the other Trust sites – Omagh Hospital and South West Acute Hospital.”

The Impartial Reporter asked the Western Trust several questions about the jobs being advertised including why none of these jobs are based in SWAH, does this mean Emergency Surgery will be withdrawn from SWAH when the roles are filled and also to provide details on a Surgical Ambulatory Unit pilot scheme which was due to start in SWAH this Autumn.

In response, a spokesperson for the Western Trust said: “The Western Trust has experienced significant difficulties in recruiting surgical consultants to work in the South West Acute Hospital and in the most recent recruitment process, which concluded in January 2022, the Trust was not able to make any appointments.

“This has led to a critically low number of Consultants working on the Emergency rota which is now difficult to sustain.

“By changing our approach to a Trust-wide position we are hopeful that this will improve our chances of successfully recruiting to the Western Trust. “Our aim is to try to provide as much Consultant Surgical input into the South West Acute Hospital as we can. It would be expected that any interview process will take place in early 2023.”

Currently, Altnagelvin has eight consultant general surgeons while SWAH has three general consultants with a Locum consultant working alongside the consultants. Trust Director of Acute Services, Geraldine McKay, revealed last week that three consultants working at SWAH were due to leave but instead of aiming to replace these roles in SWAH, the job description states: “As part of the reorganisation of General Surgical Services across the Trust it is expected that there will be one team within the Trust. Any new appointment will be treated as an equal senior to established Consultants within the Department.”

The Western Trust’s review into general surgery has not been completed as of yet and there is no indication when it will be.