Views sought on cutting of community hospital beds

Crewkerne Hospital is located next to the town's health centre, on Middle Path

People are being asked to share their views on reducing community hospital beds, as the NHS looks to bring care directly to people's homes instead.

NHS Somerset has suggested reducing hospital beds at West Mendip, Crewkerne and Frome community hospitals and is asking local people to share their feedback.

Dr Bernie Marden, chief medical officer for NHS Somerset, said: "I want to emphasise that absolutely no decision has been taken, this is about engaging with local communities to see how they see things."

NHS Somerset will be hosting conversations with the public on the matter, the next will take place on 17 August at the Mid Somerton Show.

Dr Marden added there was medical evidence that people recovered faster in the "familiarity of their homes".

"We think this is a very exciting opportunity. We're very lucky in Somerset that we have our 13 community hospitals," he said.

On average, one person could spend 37 days within a community hospital bed but the same care could be delivered in somebody's own home in just 17 days, according to Dr Marden.

However, some people are concerned that reducing the number of community hospital beds would mean people who cannot be treated at home would be sent to general hospitals further away.

One former employee at Crewkerne Community Hospital, who wished to remain anonymous, told BBC Radio Somerset being in a general hospital on a large ward did not help recovery in the same way as a smaller community hospital.

Dr Marden added: "Of course, there will be people who have to access hospital-based care. Then, our focus should be to get them back into their communities and ideally back into their own bed at home.

"We've been doing things in a particular way for a long time, but like anything in medicine there's new opportunities. There's things we can do in local communities now that we couldn't have before, like chemotherapies."