Belfast City A&E Could Close Permanently

Health minister Edwin Poots is to consider a consultation document on future A&E services in Belfast, which proposes that City Hospital’s casualty department stay closed permanently.

The unit's closure last November was described as a temporary measure due to a shortage of senior staff.

But earlier this week, the Belfast Health Trust endorsed a paper approving a recommendation that accident and emergency departments at the Royal Victoria and Mater hospitals be retained.

And yesterday the Health and Social Care Board approved the draft consultation on the changes.

The board said: "This proposed arrangement will require the permanent closure of emergency department services at Belfast City Hospital - which have been closed on a temporary basis since the autumn of last year."

Belfast's hospitals have been under scrutiny recently after a litany of shocking stories about the treatment of patients, including a 77-year-old who died at the Royal Victoria Hospital's emergency unit after being left for 20 hours on a trolley.

Patricia McKeown of Unison told UTV: "It's no coincidence that we now have a private A&E department opening in the same location.

"Now the Compton plan is a charter to cut close and privatise and I really think that the citizens should be starting to ask some very hard questions, both of the Health and Social Care and of their local trusts because there is going to be a lot more of this."

The proposals will go out to public consultation before a decision is announced.

(NE)