SICK children from the West Lothian area will have to travel 20 miles to Edinburgh for a hospital bed after a shortage of doctors forced health bosses to close the local children’s ward for the summer.
The children's ward at St John's Hospital in Livingston will close to admissions from Friday July 7 amid an ongoing struggle to recruit the number of paediatric consultants needed to safely provide round-the-clock care.
Children who need to be kept in overnight or longer for treatment will be transferred to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. Around 3000 children a year attend the children’s ward, with a third of those requiring hospital admission.
No date has been given for the ward to fully re-open, with health chiefs simply saying they were committed to reinstating the service "as soon as possible after the summer".
Jacquie Campbell, chief officer of acute services at NHS Lothian, said: “Despite our best efforts we have been unable to reliably secure the levels of staffing required overnight and at weekends to guarantee a safe service.
"If we don’t make changes now to the operating hours of the children’s ward, we run the risk of having to make an unplanned closure at a few hours notice, which would lead to the sudden diversion of patients. This reduction in opening hours is the safest option for children in West Lothian."
Maternity and neonatal care at the hospital is not affected, and children will still be assessed and treated in the A&E department at night and weekends. Outpatient appointments, tests, and minor day surgery will also continue as normal on weekdays during 8am and 8pm.
The unit previously closed to inpatients for six weeks in 2015 due to staff shortages and in June 2016 the health board embarked on a national and international recruitment drive to hire an extra eight consultant paediatricians. It has filled five posts but remains three short.
Neil Findlay, Labour MSP for Lothian, said he would fight the closure, adding: "The SNP claimed the safety and staffing issues at St John's would be resolved. Now yet again we are told that the ward will close to inpatients for an indefinite period over the summer. Local residents will rightly be furious at the downgrading of services that will leave them and their sick child having to make a 20-mile trip to Edinburgh."
Alison Johnstone, Scottish Greens health spokeswoman and a Lothian MSP, added: "West Lothian is one of the fastest growing parts of Scotland and the loss of this vitally important local service must be addressed. This brings into sharpest focus the issues facing many parts of the NHS when it comes to recruiting and keeping staff, the heart of the service."
Health Secretary Shona Robison said the Scottish Government was working with NHS Lothian "to ensure the services on offer at the St John’s in-patient paediatric ward remains safe and sustainable in the long-term".
She added: “I understand that this temporary measure is being taken in the best interest of children and their families. I have written to the board today to emphasise the importance I attach to early reinstatement of this vital service.
“NHS Lothian has assured me they will engage again with the Royal College of Paediatricians to identify solutions for sustainable services for patients."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel