Elective surgery at Western Isles Hospital resumes this week

Elective surgery is to resume at Western Isles Hospital in Stornoway on Wednesday (September 22), following a period of temporary suspension. 

Over a period of months, NHS Western Isles had identified a higher than average number of non-COVID-related surgical site infections in patients who had elective procedures in the hospital (around 3.5 per cent of the total number of procedures carried out). A precautionary decision was therefore taken to postpone elective procedures that were scheduled for a period of 10 days from September 13.  

This allowed time for a comprehensive investigation to be carried out, including a range of infection prevention and control audits.  

NHS Western Isles is now satisfied that all related systems, processes and procedures have been effectively and thoroughly audited and an Incident Management Team (IMT) overseeing the issue is confident that it is safe to resume all elective surgery.  

The first elective surgery will resume on Wednesday (September 22) for those scheduled.  

The majority of the 34 procedures postponed have been rescheduled and those patients who have not yet received a new appointment will be contacted imminently with a new appointment date. We would again sincerely apologise to all patients affected for the disruption while these necessary audits were carried out.  

NHS Western Isles would like to reassure all patients attending for procedures that all appropriate systems and processes have been fully audited and meet the required national and local standards and expectations. As an added precaution, during the period of service suspension, infection prevention and control refresher training was provided to staff to ensure the highest possible standards of practice are achieved. 

NHS Western Isles Chief Executive, Gordon Jamieson, said: “The reliability of our care system and safety of our patients is our overriding objective and it was appropriate and reasonable to take those steps to maintain that objective. I would like to apologise to anyone who has encountered a delay in undergoing surgery and thank you for your patience and understanding.”