The BBC have carried out an investigation on the number of hospital consultants on duty in hospitals across the UK.
Their investigation, which focused on Wednesday 4th December 2013 and the weekend of 7th and 8th December 2013, found that St Mary’s hospital on the Isle of Wight has 63 consultants on duty during the weekday, but none during the afternoon of the weekend.
The BBC ran this on Radio 4 earlier today and as their top story on South Today this evening, along with interviews with consultants and the Isle of Wight NHS Trust’s Executive Medical Director, Dr Mark Pugh, who defended the situation.
This evening, the Island NHS Trust issued the following statement from Dr Mark Pugh :-
“We recognise the need to ensure that our services are safe and provide quality care for everyone, every time.
“We serve a small (c140,000 people) isolated community which if relocated to the mainland would not, in its own right, warrant a hospital service of the size (236 beds) provided on the Island.
“At the moment we are not resourced to provide 24/7 consultant cover, however, our arrangements are designed to ensure that our services are safe and provide good quality care. They have worked effectively for years but are kept under constant review.
“Where ever you are on the Island you are never more than 30 minutes away from St. Mary’s Hospital. All Consultants providing ‘on call’ cover are required to be resident on the Island and attend the hospital when called.
“Across a number of our specialties our ‘on call’ Consultants do Ward Rounds at the hospital on Saturdays and Sundays, sometimes twice a day. Whilst these are not a ‘full shift’ it does ensure that our Consultants in key areas are present in the hospital during the course of the weekend and they return to the hospital for any emergencies.
“Additional on call support is provided by a range of other services to ensure our patients and staff are safe. This includes Health, Safety, Security, Fire, Back Care and Helipad.
“As an Island we organise our services differently to the mainland. We are the only fully integrated health Trust in England providing ambulance, community, hospital and mental health services in one organisation.
“Our innovative Integrated Care Hub, which includes 999, 111, community nursing, mental health, adult social care, warden assisted home alarms and other care services ensures that our residents have fast access to health and social care advice at the touch of a button.
“This integration of services, particularly the Integrated Care Hub, are in line with our My Life A Full Life programme and our shared vision for health and social care services.”
Update 28.Mar.14 – Added link to BBC Radio programme. Thanke to Seb for sending in the link.
Image: © Used with the kind permission of Auntie P
