Full and candid co-operation of Western Trust needed to protect SWAH services

Dear Sir

The recent review of acute surgical services at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) has raised fears of a reduction of services for patients living in the South West of Northern Ireland and a possible domino effect resulting in a down grading of the hospital in the medium to long term.

Our community has endured many years of uncertainty around the sustainability of various local services at SWAH. The anxiety this has raised is increased by a persistent lack of candour shown by the Western Health and Social Care Trust Executive in its attempts to deal with the challenges it faces on our community’s behalf.

To ensure the viability of highquality local services at SWAH I believe a whole system review is urgently needed.

The utility of autonomous health and social Care trusts in the context of a small population base such as Northern Ireland was always dubious, I believe that they are no longer an efficient way of delivering health and social care services and the alternative option of Local Directly Managed Units based on local government electoral boundaries would give a greater sensitivity when deciding priorities at a local level.

This issue I realise is for the Stormont Executive to consider at a future date.

Whatever the configuration of management services in the future, to protect local services now I believe we need to develop a new strategic plan properly costed and with a clear description of future priorities and clear outcomes.

However, without the full and candid co-operation of the Trust Executive this would be a very difficult task.

Our challenge as a local community would be made a lot easier if the Western Health and Social Care Trust would agree to join the local action group as an equal partner concerned with the retention of local services at SWAH and give an undertaking that they would be fully open and candid about the challenges faced by the Trust and our community and agree to jointly develop a new strategic plan to meet these challenges going forward.

This action would build the confidence of the local community that the Trust was developing a new approach with equal community input to our local health challenges and would strengthen our position with the Department of Health when difficult decisions are made. We are stronger together!

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Vincent Davidson

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