Plea to save Teignmouth community hospital from closing

Campaigners want Teignmouth Hospital to be reopened as a rehabilitation clinic

Campaigners have urged the NHS to reconsider plans to close a community hospital in Devon.

The League of Friends of Teignmouth Hospital said it could provide £1m in funding to refurbish the facility as a recovery hospital and help ease demand on the NHS.

The decision to close the hospital was made by health bosses in 2018.

Local councillors said there was much more pressure on the health system since the original decision.

Teignbridge District Council voted to support the hospital in a budget meeting on Tuesday and agreed to write to the Secretary of State for Health to call for a review into the planned closure.

As part of plans to close the hospital, some services have been moved to Dawlish Hospital and there are plans for a new health centre in the town.

However, campaigners said current pressures on NHS hospitals in Devon showed beds were needed.

Freda Welton, of the League of Friends of Teignmouth Hospital, said hospital beds were needed in the area

Freda Welton, the president of the League of Friends of Teignmouth Hospital, said the charity had already spent more than £2m on the hospital since it opened in 1954.

"That money belongs to the people of Teignmouth, the hospital belongs to the people of Teignmouth - but we need beds," she said.

"We all know people stuck in Torbay because they can't be moved anywhere."

Susan Cann, who was a nurse at Teignmouth hospital when it first opened, said the facility once boasted 34 beds and an operating theatre.

She said the health system locally was in a "terrible state".

"Torbay seems to be stuffed up with patients," she added.

'Important role'

Councillor Alan Connett, the council leader, said: "Community hospitals can play a really important role in providing those beds that enable people to leave main hospital beds and go somewhere before they go home.

"Places like Teignmouth can provide that opportunity."

A decision was made to close the hospital in 2018

Councillor Martin Wrigley, member for communities, urged the NHS to re-examine the medical need for the hospital.

"If the pandemic taught us one thing, it's that the NHS needs more flexibility and more spaces they can use in different ways," he said.

"Selling an asset like Teignmouth hospital is daft."

Liz Davenport, chief executive of the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, acknowledged that local people had "continuing concerns".

"We have invited key local stakeholders to meet with us to form a group who will agree how we will involve local people in conversations about the future of the site," she said.

Follow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].