Plan to move all chest operations to Swansea unit

PLANS are in place to stop all major chest and lung operations from being carried out at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

A public consultation has been launched which proposes centralising thoracic surgery at Morriston Hospital in Swansea in a bid to improve care for patients across the region.

It would make it one of the largest thoracic surgery centres in the UK and a “centre of excellence” for the area.

But there has been strong opposition to the plans from politicians and doctors, who claim such a centre should be based at the new major trauma centre planned for the University Hospital of Wales (UHW) site.

A consultant based at UHW, who wished to remain anonymous, said such a move would be “disastrous” for trauma patients.

“All clinicians are in agreement that reconfiguration is needed, but to disengage a thoracic surgery centre from a major trauma centre is a ludicrous proposal,” said the doctor.

“When a trauma patient comes to us with a number of different injuries, you need all these specialists skills under one roof. It’s perfectly acceptable if the travel time between centres is a few minutes, like UHW to Llandough for example, but we are talking 50 minutes at best.

“This goes totally against anything that would be good for patient safety. The single most important reason to have a major trauma centre is to improve patient survival. This seem like a politicallydriven decision.”

Cardiff North AM Julie Morgan said she had “grave concerns” over the plans and agreed such a measure would be detrimental to patient survival rates.

She said: “I know there’s huge concern from staff at all levels about this proposal because it will mean a total lack of thoracic surgeons on hand for the major trauma centre which will open at UHW.

“These surgeons and the specialist teams that go with them are a key part of the life-saving services at major trauma centres. The whole point of them is to improve survival rates for the most seriously injured patients, so thoracic surgeons need to be on the same site, or very nearby, to save lives when we are talking about treating victims of road traffic accidents and industrial accidents.

“They cannot do this if they are working in Morriston Hospital in Swansea, which has a 50-minute journey time at best.”

The AM added that Wales needs to learn lessons from England where the majority of major trauma centres are based on the same site as thoracic surgery units.

She added: “Only a dozen of the 27 major trauma centres in England have a ‘split-site’ model where thoracic surgery centres are on a different site and of these the vast majority are between three and six miles away.

“The furthest away is 15 miles whereas Morriston is 42 miles away from where the centre will be in Cardiff. This is in addition to the much larger population served by Cardiff and Vale health board.”

Currently adult thoracic surgery at UHW is delivered as part of a combined service with cardiac surgery.

For information on the consultation, which runs until Monday, August 27, go to www.whssc.wales.nhs.uk/thoracicsurgery-services-in-south-wales