CENTRAL DEVON MP Mel Stride organised a meeting at Okehampton Town Hall recently to discuss the future of Okehampton’s healthcare provision.

The meeting was triggered by the Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW CCG) closing the in-patient beds at Okehampton Hospital a month ahead of schedule.

In March it was decided that the 143 in-patient beds across the CGG’s eastern locality hospitals would be reduced to 72 beds located at Tiverton, Sidmouth and Exmouth hospitals. The decision included the closure of Okehampton Hospital’s beds.

Addressing attendees of the meeting, Mr Stride urged the community to look ahead and fight to secure the best possible services from the hospital as it is turned into a Health and Wellbeing Centre.

Mr Stride said: ‘Nobody wanted to see the inpatient beds go from Okehampton Hospital but we must now look at the opportunity of bringing valuable outpatient services to the hospital that we don’t currently have; services that residents might currently travel to Exeter or Plymouth to receive.

‘With 500 people in local acute hospitals and 100 in community hospitals every day that could be cared for at home, we must also hold the CCG to their promises that more people in Okehampton and the surrounding area will indeed be cared for in their own homes and not unnecessarily placed in Exeter or Tiverton.’

Mr Stride concluded the meeting by saying that he would be organising a follow up event and seeking the attendance of senior personnel from the CCG and Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust to explain exactly where they are with their plans for further services and the deeper community engagement that he was promised at his meeting with them around a month ago.

Attendees of the meeting included Okehampton Town Council and West Devon Borough Council members, hospital campaigners and representatives from the Friends of Okehampton Hospital group.

Martin Perry, chair of the Friends of Okehampton Hospital, said: ‘It was a very constructive meeting to discuss how we can progress things quickly. Mr Stride suggested that a further meeting is held with representatives of the CCG and RD&E to put forward our thoughts and suggestions on the hospital’s next steps.’

Okehampton hospital also looks set to lose its maternity unit under changes proposed in The Acute Services Review, which was carried out by doctors and clinicians across Devon. The review recommends that the midwifery-led unit in Okehampton should close while a greater emphasis is put on home birth.

Maternity services at the hospital were recently suspended for three months due to staff shortages but The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust has assured that the suspension has no connection with proposals to permanently close the service.