Heather Addicott, of Inverteign Drive, Teignmouth, writes:

I am writing re the letters in your recent editions re the future of Teignmouth Hospital and the proposed changes to various services.

I also attended the first ‘appraisal’ meeting at Bitton House – and having looked at the various displays and spoken to the available representatives from the CCG was rather surprised to find that it was being presented in such a way that the only viable option was the Eastcliff car park site! The hospital site was portrayed as being unfit for purpose, out of date and not viable. This site currently offers excellent services as the ‘wellbeing hub’ complete with day surgery and the excellent physiotherapy unit – and has recently had new windows and work on the exterior of the building and roof. The latter being facts that the CCG seemed unaware of.

I was concerned that as the owners of the public land at Eastcliff no representation was there from Teignbridge (or indeed Teignmouth Town Council) and spoke to the head of parking the next day and had the same reaction as the ‘Teignmouth resident’ described in their letter (Eastcliff car park ‘never’ an option for new surgery, Teignmouth Post, May 25) – and after speaking to a colleague in the estates department, a statement that there was no intention to remove the site from its present usage. There was also no representation from the league of friends who have provided support to the hospital – both pastoral and financial – for many years to benefit the residents of Teignmouth.

I was concerned about this, so I also attended the meeting at the Heritage Centre last Thursday – a different set of ‘experts’ – I repeated my conversation with Teignbridge – only to be told that ‘discussions were taking place at a high level’ – so is it a done deal?

One of the presenters said she was surprised that so many people had stated that they did not wish to lose the Eastcliff car park as there was no alternative – but then added that was down to Teignbridge Council.

I was told this was only an appraisal – but if the people of Teignmouth could offer a better site it could be considered. Apparently they may review the use of the site in Brunswick Street as they have been advised the site is larger than they were given to believe. Even so, but they need to be able to offer 150 parking spaces to meet their needs (strangely Eastcliff offers 158 spaces at the moment!). An interesting point was made by the person representing ‘operating theatre’ team – Teignmouth Hospital is very busy in this field especially following the closure of the day theatre facility in Paignton – this service would not form part of any new development and they would find it difficult logistically to transfer this back to Torbay (obviously not on the same page as her CCG colleagues!).

Regarding the rehabilitation beds at Teignmouth – the comments regarding this in the questionnaire said the local GPs saw no need to reopen these beds as there was no demand – a strange comment when bed blocking takes place at the acute hospital in Torbay as patients have nowhere to go for rehab/convalescence.

In principle – the merging of GP services could be a good idea – this would not mean all services needed to share the same building. A GP unit could be developed on the hospital site.

As a resident being asked to give an opinion on the way forward for delivering medical care in our community I would appreciate correct costed facts to enable me to make a fair judgement.

We are not seeing that!