Kirkcaldy’s accident and emergency unit reopened to overnight emergencies two days earlier than expected.
NHS Fife said its contingency plan had been stood down and a full A&E service was in operation at Victoria Hospital.
However, the health board made it clear it may be forced to close the unit overnight again in the future, despite assurances to the contrary from the Scottish Government.
Public health minister Shona Robison said on Tuesday night an intake of junior doctors from August 4 would allow services to be maintained without the need for closures, such as those at Victoria Hospital A&E affecting overnight emergencies several times since May.
Yesterday, however, NHS Fife revealed closure could become unavoidable in “exceptional circumstances” until the Victoria’s new wing opens in 2012.
Staffing problems have forced NHS Fife to repeatedly implement its contingency to downgrade A&E and suspend acute medical admissions overnight, with emergency cases taken to Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline.
The contingency was put in place again on Monday and was set to last all week, prompting calls for the Scottish health secretary to intervene.RecruitmentTrouble recruiting locum doctors has also been blamed for the crisis, with managers stating that keeping both casualty units open with insufficient staff would put patients at risk.
The problems will be resolved once the new hospital wing opens in 18 months and all acute services are based on a single site in Kirkcaldy.
The NHS recruits junior doctors each August, and NHS Fife has said it hopes to recruit as many as possible next week.
In a statement, Ms Robison said, “”NES, which recruits on behalf of health boards, has confirmed that NHS Fife’s medical rota will only have one gap, for which a locum has been identified, and its A&E rota will be over 90%. Having those full staffing levels in place will allow NHS Fife to maintain its services without the need for further contingency.”
An NHS Fife spokeswoman said it had made every effort to ensure the contingency plan was implemented when circumstances required it and there was no alternative.
“In common with other boards, NHS Fife has new intakes on junior doctors in medicine and A&E starting on August 4,” she said. “NES indicated yesterday, as the minister for public health stated, that NHS Fife’s medical rota will be over 90% full.
“Having those staffing levels in place allows us to maintain our services without the need for the contingency.”
However, she warned, “At any stage there can be sickness, other absence or other unavoidable reasons occurring at short notice. If that were to build again to the levels recently experienced, it would mean that we would not have the full staffing levels in place to enable safe delivery of the full existing service configuration.”