25 October 2018

At today’s meeting of the Board of The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), members confirmed they are working towards an implementation date of 5 December for the potential overnight closure of the A&E at the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford.

Members of the Board also confirmed they are looking into the possibility of reducing the time the department would be closed by two hours, moving the time back to 10pm.

The Board emphasised that every effort was being made to avoid the closure.

Simon Wright, Chief Executive of SaTH, said: “Every conceivable effort is being made to prevent the overnight closure of A&E at PRH and every member of this board, and all the staff working in the departments, want this to be the case.”

The next Board meeting that will take the decision on whether to suspend A&E services overnight at PRH will be held in Telford.

Clinicians will be conducting a major desktop exercise in November to test the pathways for every patient to make sure they are safe.

The A&E department at PRH currently remains open 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, however if the recruitment of additional staff is not possible the Board have agreed that an overnight closure will be unavoidable because of the impact staff shortages are having on patient safety.

While clinicians at SaTH, with the support of neighbouring trusts and our regulators, NHS Improvement and NHS England, continue to develop the pathways, SaTH will continue to look at ways of avoiding the potential overnight closure.

Clinicians at SaTH believe that both A&E Departments – at PRH and at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) – could be maintained in the short-term if the Trust had:

  • An absolute minimum of seven additional levels Middle Grade Doctors – taking staffing levels up from 11 to 18.
  • An absolute minimum of 15 more Registered A&E Nurses.

SaTH is continuing in its efforts to recruit more staff to its A&Es. The two MPs, Lucy Allan and Mark Pritchard are working hard with NHS Improvement, Health Education England and ministers to support efforts to keep the ED open by sourcing additional support for SaTH.

Last week Simon Wright, along with Telford & Wrekin Council leader Councillor Shaun Davies, attended a meeting with the Indian Consulate in Birmingham to ask if they are able to help provide any staff from India and prior to this Councillor Davies launched an appeal to businesses to help refurbish three houses at the PRH site. These will be used to accommodate junior and middle grade doctors for free, to encourage more staff to come to the Trust.

It would make SaTH the only hospital trust in England to offer free on-site accommodation to staff.

The Trust is also in the process of creating a new Doctors’ Mess at PRH that would allow access to sleeping pods and much better rest facilities.

Recruitment attempts include:

  • Consultant posts advertised six times in the last 12 months.
  • Middle Grade posts advertised nine times in the last 12 months.
  • Recruitment of registered nurses, including open days and recruitment events run as a ‘one stop’ event with interviews and assessments on the same day.
  • ED has also invested in specific nursing campaign which ran throughout May 2018 via the RCN and Nursing Times. In the last 12 months, 21 appointments have been made.

Latest recruitment successes include:

  • SaTH has appointed three new A&E consultants – a net increase of two substantive A&E consultants.
  • 22 new Consultants have joined SaTH across the specialities since the beginning of the year.
  • Funding has been secured for 30 additional Junior Doctors over the next two years.
  • 32 newly qualified Staff Nurses joined the Trust in September, and a further 23 have been offered jobs.
  • More than 100 Staff Nurses have joined SaTH across the specialities since the beginning of the year.
  • More than 30 Student Nurses have been offered ‘Golden Tickets’, meaning they are guaranteed a job following graduation.