HEALTH chiefs have given the go ahead for the formal closure of Teignbridge’s doomed community hospitals in Ashburton and Bovey Tracey.
A ‘no more patients’ ban was imposed at Ashburton on Wednesday while Bovey Tracey’s facility has been closed temporarily since December 2015.
South Devon and Torbay Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is satisfied that new services are in place to support more people at home and reduce unnecessary hospital admissions. It means that Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust can close all four South Devon hospitals in its line of fire.
The other two are at Paignton and Dartmouth. In Ashburton a temporary health and wellbeing centre will be established on the site of the Ashburton and Buckfastleigh hospital while a ‘full options appraisal’ is undertaken for a permanent centre.
Community clinics from Bovey Tracey Hospital will be moved to a permanent health and wellbeing centre on the site of Riverside and Tower House surgeries. Changes will take effect in the ‘coming weeks’, says the CCG.
A spokesman said: ‘Implementation will be overseen by the CCG’s Community Services Transformation Group and supported by implementation groups in each town, which will include representative stakeholders so that local knowledge will influence service development.’
And he added: ‘In the consultation documentation and in the public meeting presentations, we indicated that with the strengthening of community-based services the 32 escalation beds opened at Torbay Hospital in recent years would no longer be needed.
‘The CCG has been working with the Trust to identify how these beds can best be phased out to achieve the best patient-flow through the hospital.
‘As a result, the Trust has decided to close 14 beds in McCallum ward on April 1, relocating the breast and gynaecology service - which is partially located in that ward - elsewhere within the hospital.’
He stressed: ‘As changes are implemented, the focus will be on ensuring minimum disruption to patients and that patient safety remains paramount.’