A&E department closes overnight

Weston General Hospital's A&E department has announced that it will be closing overnight due to fears that it cannot be staffed safely.

The hospital, which serves more than 200,000 people in Weston-super-Mare, was recently given an overall rating of ‘Requires Improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), who rated emergency and urgent care services as ‘Inadequate’.

It has therefore taken the decision to temporarily close between 22:00 and 08:00, with those with serious and life-threatening emergencies being advised to dial 999 and ambulances will take them to Bristol or Taunton.

James Rimmer, chief executive of Weston Area Health NHS Trust, said: “We are at risk of falling short of providing safe levels of staffing in our A&E department at night. Our staff have worked incredibly hard to shore-up the department but despite significant efforts we just can’t recruit enough permanent doctors and are very dependent on temporary and locum staff. That isn’t sustainable for such a highly specialist clinical team and poses an intractable problem for the Trust.

“Today we are announcing that we will be temporarily closing our A&E at Weston overnight from Tuesday 4 July 2017, between 10pm and 8am, because we can’t provide safe staffing levels overnight from then. This is not an easy decision to make, but patient safety is our number one priority.”

Whilst the hospital is confident that the move is necessary, public sector workers' union Unison has warned that every night the department is closed ‘is a risk to the people of Weston’.