NEXT Thursday, Devon County Council’s Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee will hear a proposal from NHS Devon CCG to close Teignmouth Community Hospital.

The hospital has been the heart of the town for 65 years, and residents have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for facilities and equipment. They are resolutely opposed to its closure, as two previous consultations, several petitions and a dozen local demonstrations have been held by the Hands Off Teignmouth Hospital group.

Group spokesman Geralyn Arthurs said: ‘The proposal has already been thrown out once by the Scrutiny Committee, for failing to provide any meaningful costings. It is opposed by local MP Anne-Marie Morris, who in January asked the Secretary of State for Health to intervene.

‘Teignmouth campaigners will be making a public representation to the committee hearing on November 12 in a last ditch attempt to have the decision referred to the Secretary of State. But this time, they fear the outcomes of the latest consultation will be used to tip the balance.’

She continued: ‘Devon has already lost 500 community hospital beds over the past decade, and 18 community hospitals have closed. Teignmouth Hospital provides essential services, including many well-used community clinics, specialist clinics and a day-care surgical unit.

‘It has been at the heart of the community’s response to the Covid-19 crisis. It promised 12 in-patient beds could be used for nursing post-critical Covid- patients, relieving the pressure on acute beds in Torbay, and on overstretched care homes and nursing homes in the locality.

‘Campaigners believe this is the worst possible time to consult on its closure.

‘Public scrutiny was limited to online presentations from CCG members. Questions could be typed into a chat box, and these showed the public’s continued anger and dismay – but no member of the public was allowed to speak.’

An online survey was advertised to people across 15 postcode districts – as far away as Brixham and Chagford – at a cost of £27,000. The leaflet featured information about the proposed new Health and Wellbeing Hub at Brunswick Street, with the hospital closure mentioned at the bottom of the last page. Yet as recently as 2016, the CCG was investing in Teignmouth Hospital itself as a new Health and Wellbeing Hub for the locality.

‘The League of Friends raised hundreds of thousands of pounds – mostly from local people – to upgrade its facilities, expecting the hospital to have an ongoing and bright future.

‘For example, the closure of the hospital was wrongly linked in people’s minds with the development of the proposed new Health and Wellbeing Centre at Brunswick Street. This issue needs separate consultation and approval. A CCG email to campaigners (10/09/20) confirms that: “The construction of the Health and Wellbeing Centre in Teignmouth is not dependent on funds from the sale of the Teignmouth Hospital site.” Yet minutes of meetings held during 2018 show the CCG telling local GPs that support for the new development depended on support for closing the hospital.

‘Campaigners have also been trying to get to the bottom of the costs for renovating or rebuilding the hospital on its current site. Only the budget for closing the hospital and moving services to Dawlish Hospital and Brunswick Street was submitted. But even this shows that year-on-year savings were modest. And instead of owning a valuable public building, the local NHS and local GPs would be paying Private Finance Initiative (PFI) leases for many decades, at an uncertain future cost. The PFI leases on Newton Abbot and Dawlish hospitals, for example, are estimated to cost around £1.5m per year.

‘In fact the Currie and Brown survey from 2018 found the hospital building to be safe and sound. It did suggest “better use of the first-floor areas to utilise the facility to its full capacity”. In other words, the promised 12 in-patient beds could be installed and put to use!

‘Throughout the consultation, the case was made that these 12 beds are no longer needed because of improved care in the community. The Consultation Document said that: “Researchers from the University of Plymouth have been studying how well the current way of caring for people in Teignmouth and Dawlish is working – and their findings indicate it is working very successfully... This way of caring for people would have to change if staff were diverted to running a bedded rehabilitation ward”.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, the research team at the University of Plymouth said: “The study did not specifically look at the need for bed-based care in community or acute hospital setting... The study did not compare care at home with care delivery in community hospital beds... And it did not formally evaluate if the Trust had delivered on its commitment in the “2016 model of care”. The research team did not know their work had been used in the consultation case until the FOI request was made to them.

‘Everyone knows that the intermediate care team does an incredible and difficult job. But to do the work of a full community hospital, they need more investment and support, not less. The CCG’s claim that they can look after ‘four times as many people at home’ without the hospital, is an admission that they hope to use just a quarter of the resources to care for the old and vulnerable. And if people do need a community bed, they are sent out of the local area to a hospital or nursing home.

‘With all this misinformation at work, campaigners say, the consultation failed the Gunning Principles that are widely used in public consultations. The proposal was already “substantially agreed” (as minutes of CCG meetings in 2018 show). Campaigners wait to learn whether their request for the consultation findings will be met, and whether those findings will be given “conscientious consideration”. Meanwhile they have contacted local MPs, councillors and members of the Scrutiny Committee in the hope that the case for saving Teignmouth Hospital will be given proper, transparent review on 12 November.

For further information please contact: Geralyn Arthurs, Hands Off Teignmouth Hospital (07952 357535) Rosie Haworth-Booth, SOHS Press officer (01271 830267) http://www.sohs.org.uk/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/652187165418338.