Co-ordinator: Marna Blundy, 4 Botallack Moor, St Just, PENZANCE, Cornwall TR19 7QH
Tel / Fax 01736 788107
Email: westcornwallhealthwatch@yahoo.co.uk

PRESS STATEMENT 8TH February 2004

EMERGENCY SURGERY AT WEST CORNWALL HOSPITAL

Despite West Cornwall Hospital having full theatre facilities and surgeons on-call 24/7, the availability of emergency surgery in Penzance has been severely restricted since the end of the summer. Currently there is no emergency surgery after 5pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and none on Saturdays or Sundays after 1pm, due to staff sickness. The situation was to have been resolved in the autumn, but six months later the situation remains the same.

A spokesperson for the RCHT commented:
"Most emergency surgery at WCH is scheduled into allocated theatre sessions during normal working hours which is in line with nationally accepted best practice and in the interests of patient safety. This arrangement has little impact on local services and in the very small number of instances where a patient needs urgent surgery out of hours, when there is no anaesthetic cover at WCH, patients are treated at RCH."

However Marna Blundy, spokesperson for West Cornwall HealthWatch, has responded:
"On the contrary, this state of affairs has a major impact on those local people requiring urgent, probably life-saving, surgery out of hours. We understand that out of hours emergency surgery is on the increase at Treliske and there are now requests to roster additional anaesthetic assistants on the Treliske site. Obviously the out of hours requirement at Treliske has increased - because it is no longer available at West Cornwall Hospital. We are told that no-one can be found to fill the gap at West Cornwall Hospital, yet additional staff are being recruited for Treliske. There seems to be a drift towards reducing or losing the capacity to perform out of hours surgery in Penzance. This should be publicly investigated - otherwise the public will once again draw the conclusion that services at West Cornwall Hospital are being downgraded yet again."

In response to the issue of staff recruitment the RCHT recently stated "There are difficulties in recruiting consultants and high grade staff across the whole country. RCHT has a good record in recruitment when compared with others."

Mrs Blundy responded "It is a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs that staff such as anaesthetic assistants cannot apparently be found who would be willing and able to work at West Cornwall Hospital. One wonders how hard the recruiters have tried? We await within weeks the overdue detailed plans concerning the future of West Cornwall Hospital. It can only be hoped that, within the details, this matter - and all the other issues which resulted in the March of 20,0000 nearly two years ago - will finally be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone who wishes to see a fully functioning acute hospital for the 150,000 people who live in the west of the county."