I'm Charlie and I work in Southport which sees 35,000 new cases per year. We have a very similar hospital 7 miles away at Ormskirk which sees the same. The Trusts were always separate and a bit unfriendly. The hospitals could never agree on merger plans because someone would lose out so for years we were at an impasse. The Trusts eventually merged, but still could not agree on where services should be. A report by Prof Robert Shields decided to split services on the 2 sites, Southport gets all emergency and major Surgery & Orthopaedics; Paediatrics and O&G goes to Ormskirk and Medicine is status quo on both sites, both receiving emergency cases. A&E was split, not merged as good sense would dictate leaving an "adult" A&E at Southport, a Paediatric A&E at Ormskirk and the medics receiving emergencies on both sites. The only A&E doctors are to be at Southport. The Ormskirk site will have Paediatricians seeing all children, ENPs staffing a "minor injuries unit" and Physicians seeing 999 and GP medical emergencies. All surgical emergencies will be triaged by the ambulance service to be taken to Southport. We will have no Paediatric surgery on either site, they go to Alder Hey in Liverpool.
The moral of this farce is "don't let professors make your decisions for you".
Dr C C Scott
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