ALL but one of the vacancies caused by the shock resignation of five emergency department consultants working at hospitals in Worcestershire have been filled, it has been announced.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust was thrown into turmoil in February when five A&E consultants – including the entire emergency team at Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital as well as one other from Worcestershire Royal Hospital – handed in their notice on the same day.

But in a statement issued today the trust announced three of the four vacancies at the Alex had been filled and plans were in place to recruit to the final post.

All three of the new consultants are currently working in other emergency departments and are expected to take up their new roles in August, subject to agreeing notice periods with their employers.

The trust also said it had secured an experienced agency consultant to work at the Alex between June and August and was working to ensure the education of trainee doctors working at the hospital was not disrupted during the changeover.

This follows the appointment of Dr Jules Walton to the post at the Royal last month.

Although the trust initially refused to disclose why the consultants had resigned, it later released an open letter from the four from the Alex – named as Richard Morrell, Sarah Crawford, Christopher Hetherington and David Gemmell – in which they claimed the trust’s management had “undermined” services at the hospital.