PEOPLE POWER
Victory in children’s ward campaign Board rule for around-the-clock care
Campaigners are celebrating after health bosses pledged to keep the children’s ward at St John’s Hospital open all hours.
The board of NHS Lothian met yesterday (Wednesday) to decide on the future of the crisis- hit ward after an independent report was commissioned to look at whether it should be downgraded and sick children sent to Edinburgh.
Crippling staff shortages last year sparked fears the ward would be permanently downgraded after it was closed for six weeks. This followed a three-week closure in 2012.
But board members ruled the ward should be kept open around- the- clock so sick youngsters won’t have to travel to the capital for treatment.
The report, written by the Royal College of Paediat rics and Child Health, recommended the ward be retained on 24/7 inpatient basis, which will see consultants being resident in the hospital overnight.
Consultants will be asked to do occasional overnights to provide a senior presence, supported by a non–resident consultant on-call from home.
This model will take up to two years to implement in full and a second option presented by the college will be put in place in the meantime, seeing the children’s ward providing overnight in-patient care as a 24 hour ‘ low acuity’ unit, which does not admit children overnight when consultants are not present.
A spokesperson for NHS Lothian said the board had shown it was “committed to maintaining the future of the children’s ward on a 24/7 basis.”
Campaigners who have been fighting to keep the ward open were jubilant and said the news was a victory for
“people power”.
Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: “There is no doubt that the strength of feeling and the clear demands of local people had a huge impact.
“Had people not been mobilised into action then I doubt very much whether the result would have been such a good one.
“This campaign shows how people power can get results.”
SNP MSP Fiona Hyslop added: “This is a fantastic result for the families and young people of West Lothian.
“The review team echoed the concerns and challenges that the West Lothian SNP Group highlighted in our full submission to them in January this year.”
The review began last year and asked patients, families, carers and staff from across Lothian for their views on acute paediatric care during a series of focus groups, meetings and via an online survey.
The team of experts aimed to understand how families use the services when a child is unwell and what arrangements would be most effective in the future, given the current difficulties across the UK in recruiting medical staff with the expertise to provide some of the more complex care.
The college also looked at how the service performs in comparison to other acute inpatient, paediatric services in the UK and how it benchmarks in relation to national standards.
The review team also spoke to staff and asked them to share their experiences and expectations of the service.
In total the report made 31 recommendations for inpatient children’s services across the Lothians and it is proposed that a programme board, led by a non-executive board member, is created to begin the implementation process.
Brian Houston, chairman of NHS Lothian, said: “I am confident that the board has agreed to implement a set of plans that will help us to deliver the safest services for children across Lothian.
“We will create a programme board, headed by one of our non-executive board members, to help steer and monitor progress across these important recommendations. However the importance of securing the agreement of the current clinical teams cannot be underestimated.”
Jim Crombie, chief officer of Acute Services, NHS Lothian, added: “We have a number of recommendations, in relation to recruitment, changing working patterns and fostering closer relations between departments.
“Our staff are pivotal in moving forward. We have begun early discussions with them and over the coming weeks we will work closely with the clinical teams to ensure they play a key role in putting the plans in place.
“We are grateful to the college for their expertise and their in-depth knowledge, which has allowed us to see how other systems across the UK operate.”