Local health campaign group, Save our Acute Services (SOAS), has launched a five-point plan for the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH), one of which calls for the creation of a new health trust in Northern Ireland.
SOAS launched their plan for the future of health provision in Fermanagh and Tyrone last Thursday, March 16 at Fermanagh House.
The new South Western Trust area would cover the same area as the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area, and take in Omagh Hospital as well.
Robert Patton, a SOAS representative, detailed the reasons behind the five-point plan.
“I feel we, in this area, are out on a limb, and I feel it would be negative for us if we didn’t have access to urgent and emergency care in Enniskillen,” he said. “What we aim to achieve is the restoration of a publicly-funded and locally-accountable NHS Trust.
“Now, I want to stress this will be a total separation from the Western Trust, but it will be a National Health hospital. We will still be reliant on the Department of Health and the National Health to fund this hospital, and to provide our own services that we need in the area.
“So it will not only secure better care for the community, but we expect it to be a driver of job growth and career opportunities.
“We really want to have at the end of this a vibrant and forward-looking hospital, with a multiplicity of skills and capabilities. In that respect, we have an ambition for it that the Western Trust do not,” he claimed.
The first point called for a “separate NHS Trust for the South West area with its own management team” which will “address the Western Trust failure in its duty of care to our patients and staff”.
“We want our management team focused in our area and on our hospital,” added Mr. Patton.
The second point in the plan is to restore urgent and emergency surgical services at the SWAH with Department of Health assistance on rotas.
“It’s clear that we will need continued input from the Department because for one thing they are going to be funding us. Another thing, it is important that we get sufficient cover from the rotas, particularly in the interim stages. And the management of the new hospital will be done in consultation with the Department.”
Third in the five-point plan is to create new initiatives to ensure a settled workforce where all staff – including consultants and locums – are respected and valued.
Mr. Patton said: “The big problem that the Western Trust has had is in recruitment and retention of consultants, and that is why they have taken the view they can’t keep providing the acute services that they talk about.
“We feel we know that there is a different approach to recruitment and retention. And we will have, in our way of working, a wider area of recruitment, including across the whole of the EU where there are a lot of capable and well-qualified surgeons.
“We will have a different package to offer and a different way of recruitment, which will be for one hospital only and not a mix of two or three,” added Mr. Patton, who said they would use the rural retention premium – a salary top-up which the NHS makes available to hospitals that are disadvantaged.
“The responsibility of management is to look after and manage your staff, not to ignore them and then blame them when they leave. This has been the failure of the [Western Trust] management for some considerable time, and has resulted in the situation they are trying to deal with now,” Mr. Patton claimed.
The plan would also bring new surgical specialities to the SWAH such as bariatric, colorectal and breast.
“We will have a set of new skills, surgical and other, which will add roles and employment to the hospital.
“The SWAH will become a desirable place to work when we do this. And it adds capacity to the entire health system in Northern Ireland.”
The final point looks at the re-launch of the five operating theatres in the SWAH to provide emergency care and elective care for local and regional needs, including cross-Border.
Mr. Patton said this will help with operation waiting lists across the NHS: “The aim would provide excellent care with specialties we offer to patients across the board, both North and South.”
Mr. Patton said the plan aims to achieve a “new and vibrant hospital” that gives the whole population fully-functioning and fully-qualified healthcare.
“We have an opportunity to do something about this. We must get on and do it,” he said.
The Western Trust were asked to respond to SOAS’s plan, with a spokesperson saying: “All responses to the Trust [public] consultation on the temporary change to emergency general surgery [at the SWAH] will form part of the Trust’s Outcome Report, due to be presented to the Trust Board in Summer.
The consultation ends in April.
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