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The Southern Trust have replied to a statement earlier this week from MLA Justin McNulty, in which he hit out at the "appalling lack of honesty" from the Trust in relation to the future of emergency surgical services at Daisy Hill Hospital and accused the Trust of "downgrading by stealth"
In her reply Trust Chief Executive Dr Maria O'Kane said that it was unfortunate that the MLA had been unable to attend the Trust Board Meeting last Thursday where he would have heard first hand from the consultant general surgical team and added that when he was briefed on Friday on the proposals he didn't ask any questions or raise any of these concerns. Dr O'Kane said that the Trust have been consistently open and honest with local elected representatives, and the wider public and called the MLA's comments completely disingenuous.
Southern Trust Chief Executive Dr Maria O’Kane - Statement
“Mr McNulty’s accusations of dishonesty are astonishing, deeply disappointing, and disheartening particularly to our general surgery team who have worked tirelessly to sustain and now to try to improve their service for local people. Newry and Mourne is a thriving and forward looking community that deserves the best of health care to support its growth and prosperity. The NHS, and the Southern Trust in particular, is a dynamic organisation that continues to develop in line with best practice and constantly strives for excellence in its care of patients. It is important for the people of Newry and Mourne that their surgical outcomes are not compromised by outdated models of care. Mr McNulty misses the point that the previous model of care is now unable to deliver on the safe standards of care agreed regionally for surgical provision by the Royal College of Surgeons and Mr Swann previous Health Minister.
“We have been consistently open and honest with local elected representatives and the wider public since the issues with general surgery workforce and delivery of safe surgical standards arose over a year ago.
“Mr McNulty’s claims are completely disingenuous. Like all of our stakeholders, he has been kept up to date every step of this process through briefings, meetings, press releases and indeed he attended our special Trust Board meeting on 13th December when members agreed to proceed with public consultation on the future of Emergency General Surgery early in the new year.
“It is unfortunate that Mr McNulty was not able to attend our Trust Board meeting last Thursday where he would have heard first hand from our consultant general surgical team as they directly appealed for support in helping them to stabilise and improve the safety and outcomes of their service.
Dr O'Kane continued “Mr McNulty makes reference to the number of General Surgeons in the UK. What he has not described is what this means in actuality. Surgical training has changed in the past 15 years. As a result although there are greater numbers of trainees in surgery generally, a significant proportion part-time. Also, they now complete their training as specialists in specified areas of surgery rather than as generalists to improve outcomes in treatment. This means that although there are more trainees in general surgery there are much fewer consultants in general surgery. We are short of General Surgical Consultants in Northern Ireland.
“When along with other political colleagues on Friday he was fully briefed on our proposals, he did not ask us any questions or raise any of these concerns.
“Contrary to what Mr McNulty has stated – the Trust has not announced that the withdrawal of emergency surgery is permanent. We have launched a 12 week public consultation and welcome everyone to read our proposals and make an informed response.
“Having trialled this approach over the past year and based on regional guidance, delivering all emergency general surgery from Craigavon is the only way that our general surgeons have told us that they can safely meet best practice standards, to give their patients the safe, high quality and modern care that they deserve.
“Furthermore, we also made it clear at Trust Board that any final proposed decision will need to be approved at a regional level.
“We welcome the very constructive support of community colleagues through Daisy Hill Pathfinder and Daisy Hill Future Group, who have shown such a genuine interest and have worked hard to help us improve and promote our hospital.
“At Trust Board our surgeons stressed that we will not be able to recruit or retain staff if we do not help them modernise their service. It is regrettable that Mr McNulty’s spurious claims and allegations only undermine all of our collective efforts to promote, improve and attract staff to our local hospital.”
The Public Consultation is open to 21 April 2023. For access to all consultation documents southerntrust.hscni.net
The Trust will be hosting online information events on: Friday 24 February from 11am to 1pm; Friday 3 March from 2pm to 4pm; and Thursday 9 March from 6pm to 8pm. To register your interest in attending or request copies of documents in other format Email: consultations@southerntrust.hscni.net
See Mr McNulty's statement here Removal of Emergency General Surgery from Daisy Hill is 'downgrade by stealth'
