A number of acute medical consultants at St Mary’s Hospital have quit in a move that sources say could be ‘catastrophic’, Island Echo can reveal.
Talks to secure the retainment of highly specialist staff have allegedly been taking place since August, but have completely failed. As a result, over the past few weeks consultants have left the Isle of Wight NHS Trust 1 by 1.
At the start of October, just 2 of the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU) consultants are thought to have remained – but they too have now left the Trust’s employment.
The Medical Assessment Unit – also known as the Acute Assessment Unit – oversees the assessment and treatment of patients transferred from A&E where consultants draw up a detailed care plan. The Unit also takes referrals from GPs and outpatient clinics.
In response to the flurry of resignations and in order to keep the unit running, locum consultants have been drafted in at a significant cost – somewhere in the region of £70,000 a quarter, it is understood. This is whilst full-time replacements are urgently sought.
Today’s news will no doubt cause concern for some as the winter months approach, historically bringing greater pressures on health services. In recent weeks the Isle of Wight NHS Trust has had to declare a Critical Incident on several occasions.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Isle of Wight NHS Trust has told Island Echo:
“Three doctors in our acute medical services have resigned. To ensure the safe continuation of service we took swift action to bring in locum doctors while we work to fill those roles permanently.
Article continues below this advertisement “We would like to reassure our patients and the wider community that our absolute focus remains the safety and quality of health care services on the Island.”
The Trust has not answered questions as to why these consultants have left, how much the locum consultants are costing and how the resignations affect junior doctors studying at St Mary’s.
Sources say they fear the loss of permanent staff could be ‘catastrophic’, adding that this latest development could push St Mary’s Hospital and the wider Trust back towards special measures.
Very selfish of them to quit one by one without replacements being found.
The reason why they are leaving is that the trust employs Medefer, the group of highly paid consultants which sorts out referrals. My GP referred me, and a week later Medefer contacted me. All done over the internet and phone calls, no face-to-face. The trust won’t let us patients see a consultant at the hospital. Go on Medefer web site
That’s not all completely true.
Yes, the trust has employed Medefer, however it is not because the trust won’t let you see a consultant, it’s because nationally there are 7.1 mil patients on the waiting list to see consultants. Our hospital is small, lacks specialists, and of the few consultants we have, they do not physically have the time to see every patient. So, Medefer was bought in to help ease some of the pressure.
I understand that many would like to see a consultant face to face, but at least the trust has tried to do something to help. If they hasn’t enlisted their help, who knows how long you would have had to wait to get a face to face appointment.
My GP requested blood tests, Xray and Physiotherapy on a visit this year, my blood test was dealt with by Medefer, but following outcome of Xray my Physiotherapy was dealt with by Ascenti who have an office at the Innovation Centre in Newport. The physio was initially a telephone conversation but I refused to do the exercises until I actually saw a Physiotherapist as having previously been associated with some medical colleagues in my employment I only thought it correct that you were shown how to do exercises by a qualified person and not from written instructions. The NHS is currently going the same way as the NHS Dentists have – privatisation will be the final nail in the coffin but can we stop the rot before that happens?
Hi. I agree. Last September I saw GP about neck pain. But came up with I needed Physio. I had to phone this company, waited till November 11, had my first video via the internet. How can someone check you via the internet? My next appointment after Christmas, should been over the web, but I could not connect, over the phone again.
I complain to these people, well that’s how we do it, your last appointment be in June face to Face in Cowes, but that changed to Newport. But in January 22, I complained to my surgery and saw a real physio. Now since then, I’m still waiting for a Pain Clinic appointment, how can you give me some exercises over the phone? More money wasted at St Marys
That is nit true ..yes Mediterranean are involved but you still get ro see your consultant but quicker …
Most senior members of staff within the NHS will have a longer period of notice to give as finding replacements isn’t always easy – especially in todays current issues surrounding the NHS.
So, could it be possible that these staff members have given, say, a 3 month notice, but the trust has been unable to find a replacement in that time? In which case they’ve every right to leave as they’ve worked their notice. But even if that is not the case, why should they have to stay and work in a job role, or place that they do not like or feel valued in? Perhaps their mental health is deteriorating with the stress of the job. Just because they’re consultants, does not mean they should be treated any less human.
Have you never changed jobs to improve your life.? I do not know anybody who has changed jobs and waited till a replacement is found. Get real
Precisely! And actually, the NHS cannot advertise the job role until the current post holder has left their job…
However, there may be a different rule set for senior members of staff.
It’s about money not patient care.
They would never get out then i honestly can’t blame them with what they are having to deal with. It’s enough to send anyone over the edge . They are humans not machines and everyone has a limit.
There must he a series reason why rhey have resigned
So NHS trust and IWC are able to pay huge amounts for agency staff ( more than 3x cost of employed ) yet even agency staff soon leave !. Why don’t managers improve working conditions , listen to staff and stop making the work so complicated. Management are to blame and by trying to save hundreds are then spending thousands and public are let down and often having to suffer. There is no job satisfaction anymore and commitment and loyalty lost.
Managers improve working conditions, they do, but only for themselves. One Dept. Recently moved from where they were and the manager was so blind to the needs of the staff that nothing got sorted, except, yep you guessed it, the managers office, vital!!!! Meanwhile the staff had no where to have a break, no toilet to use easily and no where to get changed into uniforms, as your not supposed to wear the uniform outside of the hospital. And of course the manager closes the office door and doesn’t give a monkeys about what goes on in the clinic, just stays in there and chats to their best buddy all day. Get rid of these kind of incompetent managers. There MUST be an investigation, independently done.
Another example of meddling management and how toxicity affects people trying to do a good job. It’s the same everywhere unfortunately.
Ask yourself. Who selects the “meddling management”? Who gives them their budget and tells them what they can spend it on? Who makes the rules they impose on the staff? Who made training to be a nurse more expensive? Who has spent the last 12 years devaluing a careers in nursing and medicine?
Yes, the management are toxic, but they are not where the buck stops.
We have had 12 years of Tory rule and the country is worse off now than when they took over. I know the Tory apologists will bleat “but Covid” and “better than Liebour”.
But you know the truth. Tories are like locusts. They consume everything and then move on leaving the mess for someone else to clear up.
Really, so the last labour government didn’t leave the country bankrupt then with no money in the coffers? Don’t know if you are just too young to know that or if you need to get a memory.
I’m 58. So I spent my early working years under Thatcherism. Then the 13 years under Labour, then the last 12 under the current shower.
For most ordinary working people life was far better under Labour than either of the two Tory regimes, and the NHS, the subject of this article, had some of it’s best ratings with regard to patient satisfaction and waiting times.
These are facts. It’s all recorded in black and white. Look the figures up yourself.
Cannot argue your logic, but who will pay for this utopian concept of the NHS, the chairman of NICE said recently that if the NHS keeps swallowing money at the rate it is then it will consume the whole of GDP by 2050.
If you are 58 then you know you are talking crap. We have never been better off under labour since the 1970’s. We have experienced a very easy lifestyle in the 2,000’s, but that has now come to a very abrupt end and we are going to have a lot of difficult years ahead. Do people like you really think that all the hundreds of billions of pounds that were spent keeping everyone at home twiddling their thumbs during the pandemic would not come at a price? We are all now having to pay the ferryman.
Tell, me, Paul.
Who has been running the country for the last 10 years while it descended into the pit it is now in? Who has been making all of the decisions?
Remember “austerity”. Just made the entire country poorer while doing nothing to fix the financial hole the country was in. That resulted in a country that was financially unprepared for Covid, requiring massive borrowing and causing a hole that makes the 2008 crash look like a small pothole.
And their remedy? “Austerity 2”, because that worked so well last time.
And we won’t all be paying. Super rich non-doms won’t be, nor the profiteering energy companies.
Shallow brain you have… We are out of EU, so we are saving bear 300 million a day… we now have new trade with other countries that the Eu did not want us to do.. We can raise our OWN flag now.. NO COUNTRY could afford Covid…
You make it sound so sweet, but, how many of these consultants etc., live on the mainland.. they work at St Mary’s, have to be there at X time and leave at X time… but without regular ferry service, how is that possible, and also the costs of the ferries now compared to 13 or so years ago ???
If we had a TUNNEL, these problems would barely exist !!
They aren’t facts. Both statements you made are based on opinion.
It no different than it was then, remember Burnham oversaw the deaths of many patients?? Of course you do not remember, he is a socialist.
You don’t like the idea of socialism, I take it?
You don’t like the idea of everybody paying into system according to their ability to pay so that people can use it irrespective of their ability to pay?
News for you. That is exactly how the NHS works. The NHS is socialism incarnate.
I assume you will be paying for you healthcare privately in future. Can’t have you sullying yourself with all that filthy socialism, can we?
If your concept of socialism was in anyway correct we would all be socialists, the reality is they are as inept ,corrupt and just for themselves as any other party, the only differnce is socialists are communists in drag who will sell this country down the road to Russia, look how many labour MP’s have been unearthed as communist spies since world war 2..
i prefer George Orwells, animal farm, as it provides a much better picture of what socialism always ends up as, even if it starts out with good intentions.
nothing worse than hand wringing do gooders spending other peoples money – and as for which ever political party is in power- they are all the same, no matter what drivel they come out with – as for me, I have ensured that I have prospered under the torys and the last labour government. No matter what those parliament wannabees say, they are only ever an extension of the gullible electorate that voted them in.
One thing to remember – no politician ever puts anything in place that is likely to affect them personally or put too much risk of them not being voted back in.
Oh yes the government appoint the managers so it must be their fault, absolute rubbish, if you could look at things from a realistic and factual point of view then you might get past your bias and understand these managers are employed by the local health authoity who are as removed from the centre of power as your logic.
So if you were the boss of a company and you employed a complete screw-up as a local manager, that wouldn’t be your fault?
Not only do the Government appoint the managers, they also make the rules and the framework those managers have to work in.
A trust chief executive is basically a naff middle-manager. The real boss in in Westminster.
This was always going to happen and now with Hunt in charge or the countries cash it will get worse, he almost destroyed the NHS when he was Health Minister, now he can do what he had always wanted.
Lets bring back Truss and Kwarteng then!
It should be in special measures. They neglected my father who has dementia because of staff shortages.
He nearly died at one point as his urine retention wasn’t identified. There was 1 nurse looking after several high needs patients which just wasn’t enough.
It’s managed badly which is probably why these consultants have left.
Let’s hope that no one you know gets sick anytime soon. God help us all.
It would be pretty interesting to hear from the departing employees – was it just coincidence that you’ve all left at once, or is this a protest about your working conditions?
My husband was in there overnight, he had s heart machine which was pacemaker and another heart thing planted together in his chest they asked him if he wanted it switched off on his notes it said not to do a DNR so quite easy in red they again asked him if they could switch switch the machine off, my husband called me and said come and get me, they turned the machine off as by then he said they pressurised him i collected him he passed the following evening at home, which he always.wanted but.when questioned as to why the machine was switched off they said more or less he was very poorly so in the best interest it seemed better complained did all i could but got no answers ,but the nurse in question was not even around any more so
So sorry for your loss Sue. I had the same with my mother, I feel your pain x
Sack management and reinstate Matrons.
They already have Matrons. The problems there have more than one cause.
It is the isolation, the lack of support from other hospitals – you can’t easily ask for Southamption & Portsmouth to take patients unless you helicoptor them over.
Bed numbers is defined by available staff, which is why bed numbers are dropping – they can’t get the nursing staff.
For consultants it is considered a dead end job – the type you go to just before you retire.
They do not have matrons, the matron was the senior nurse who was responsible for all the nursing side of the hospital and usually had a couple of deputies but now we have nurses in senior positions in every department being called matrons and forming just another pointless layer of management
I know, let’s build more houses, as the top councillors have fully paid up private health and dental care, so couldn’t care less about the masses pain, worry and suffering, so long as more houses fund their bloated salaries, expenses car pool and pension pots.
See them for what they are.
What they are (the Councillors you impugn) are unpaid volunteers. Perhaps you mean the Council officers, which is a very different matter.
Is there even a solid private healthcare option on the Island? I would be willing to pay but looks like most would require trip to Southampton, like the Spire Hospital.
If they are doctors which have to commute between the Island and mainland hospitals, that in itself may be a major factor.
I would imagine that these staff members have left because of the ongoing issues our hospital have. The emergency floor at St Mary’s is always heaving, patients transferred from A&E to MAU without beds being allocated, or patients still in the beds that the new patients need (despite them not being for discharge, just perhaps a transfer to another ward, who coincidentally don’t have a free bed) It is a knock on effect and sadly, we as an island aren’t very specialised, so staff may desire more specialised areas of medicine, which our trust does not cater for. Or simply the working conditions have just become so dire they’re having to make too many difficult decisions, too often, so have left to find employers that will value them
To cover staff shortages the Trust has to pay enhanced rates for agency staff.
Would it make sense to pay permanent staff more to a) attract new staff and b) keep the staff they have rather than spending out on agency staff?
Agree but it is the “codswallop” of rules that prevent them from increasing pay just like that, they are governed by Government pay policies within the NHS as the NHS isn’t a privatised company – hence everyone moving for better paid jobs.
Unless we know the facts it is pointless to speculate, some consultants are on contracts , Medefer is another initiative trying to f=drag the NHS into 20th century, 21st centuyt is still too big a leap for most hospitals, does it matter that you do not see someone in, person if your ailments are resolved, the issues in the NHS are as much to do with needy people as outmoded working practices.
Even Medefer is not working… My GP referred me to Medefer- very quick diagnosis and treatment plan. Two months down the road and no response from St Mary’s. Good job it’s not urgent.
Probably come back as locums ??????
More money more flexibility!!!!!
I had the misfortune to being taken to A&E last Wednesday. I was very impressed by the care that I was given. I had numerous tests and a scan. All the staff were very pleasant despite being being very busy. I, too, had previously been refered to Medifer. I have nearly completed all the prescibed tests but would have liked to have had a face to face meeting with a Consultant.
The inevitable dismemberment of St. Mary’s as a fully functioning general hospital is slowly accelerating.
Three significant factors affect the marked reluctance of medics and nurses to move the IW:-
# Career demands in the medical world mean that doctors have to regularly move homes and their families. Buying into the relatively depressed IW property market is a real downer. The proceeds from selling a four bedroom IW house will only get you a down-market two bedrooms house in most of the big cities on the mainland.
# The widespread knowledge of the poor quality of the island’s schools is a significant repellent.
# The total reliance on an outdated, unreliable and ludicrously expensive means of transport to and from the island.
It is the combination of money, hours and stress. The more they do the more they expect. If anything I feel it could also be as support to the Nurses going on strike. If you haven’t read Adam Kay’s book “This is going to Hurt” then do, not the TV series that didn’t portray the true extent of what Consultants have to go through to get accepted in senior positions. When you think a footballer earns 10x more money than a person that can actually save your life it also puts things into perspective.
It is a rather nasty negative feedback loop.
Fewer staff makes work more stressful for those who remain, which make is more likely for them to leave, resulting in even more stress.
Adam Kay’s book is excellent. Should be essential reading for anyone before they bleat about NHS staff on social media.
Anyone with common sense understands that good working conditions, respect and valued is all employees need and we will be loyal and commited etc. Raise the standards and can do away with money wasted on management ( they won’t need to attend meetings about staff shortages, recruitment and interviewing and dealing with high levels of sickness and sacking) managers make their own work and make themselves important. Stop paying outside consultant agency to tell you what you should already know. I worked for 40yrs, only 35days off sick in that time. Some staff had that much every 6mths. I left because no longer valued and managers were bullying other staff and creating alot of hatered. Spending most of time in so called important meetings !.
About bloody time!!!
Sad times,
Just an observation but it does seem to be that not only Consultants but also other nursing staff etc are leaving the NHS then signing up with agencies and returning to cover the same job on considerably more money.
Well… out of everything Brexit didn’t deliver it sure ensured less competition. Shortage of workers in action: professionals can dictate what they want and not many foreign pros are looking towards UK as it’s not competitive vs the dollar or euro, plus the immigration bureaucracy. It’s their market and I applaud them for going after better paid options, especially at a time when gov is planning to tax high earners even more. The moment new tax hits me, I’m doing the same. Someone at the bottom of the chain will have to pay up but they did overwhelmingly vote for this. Even the worst case is OK: if UK companies can’t afford my new rate? I start working remotely for US and my know-how helps Americans. Be like water, my friend.
Next boss and prominent Brexitoid, Lord Wolfson, is now squealing that he didn’t get the Brexit he wanted. He’s complaining he can’t employ enough foreign workers despite keeping “dirty foreigners” out being a cornerstone of Farage and Johnson’s Brexit promises.
Yep. We are less attractive not only to highly paid knowledge workers but also truck drivers that deliver fuel to gas stations (we already saw that shortage and responded with… lowering the entry bar to driving dangerous vehicles, lol), or Polish builders, or Italian waitresses. But hey, it clearly helped with illegal immigration, no crisis there since UK took controls of its borders, eh? And it’s surely better to have to spend thousands of £ on handling those illegal immigrants while at the same time blocking all who are net-positive to the economy, what could go wrong 😉
St. Mary’s in the end will become a cottage hospital
They already have. It is really just a triage centre for Southampton and Portsmouth.
Were they ever needed!
These jobs would easily be filled if we had a TUNNEL to mainland !!!
Doctors and surgeons etc used to take the “hippocratic oath” while practicing, but now it is the “hypocrite oath” as they have only their best interests at heart and money rules.
They leave the NHS only to be employed again in the same role at the same hospital but earning shed loads more as they have sold out ot the private sector.
It was under Blair the NHS started to be sold off. The starting point of privatising clinical care came in June 2000 when Alan Milburn took over as health secretary. In fact, the Tories regaled against it calling it hypocrisy…….
Geez, just pay them more money as they deserve. Simple! Lol
Nurses will be leaving/ changing careers next as poor pay and conditions then st Marys be right in the sh1t
Medefer is an absolute joke; utterly useless. If this is the new model of the NHS then I will be forced to go elsewhere. Rude consultants, lack any sort of bedside manner. A disgrace