IN JUST a few days more than 1,300 signatures have been collected for a petition started by campaigners seeking to save the GP out-of-hours clinic at Tavistock Hospital.

The petition, which received a total of 1,315 names, will be officially presented to the NHS Northern Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in the coming weeks.

It was confirmed in July this year by the CCG that there will no longer be local GPs based at Tavistock Hospital during evenings and weekends, meaning people needing the service will have to travel to Derriford Hospital or Okehampton Hospital for face-to-face appointments.

The current service, provided by Devon Doctors Ltd contracted by NHS Northern Eastern and Western Devon CCG, sees a GP based at the hospital every evening from 7pm to 11pm and two GPs at the weekend from 8am to 1pm then one from 1pm to 11pm. They provide advice and consultations over the phone, face-to-face consultations at the hospital and support the minor injuries unit and the hospital ward. There is also a car and a driver for GPs to carry out home visits for people who are housebound.

From October however, there will no longer be any GPs out of hours based at the hospital, there will be no car or driver based in Tavistock and a number of the support staff will be made redundant. Cars and drivers based in Plymouth and Okehampton will cover the home visits.

One Tavistock group of the national pressure group Keep Our NHS Public recently had a stall outside the former Old Folk’s Rest Room in order to find out what people thought of the cut and to see if they wanted to sign a petition to save the GP out-of-hours clinic — and people, at times, queued in order to be able to sign the document.

Kevin Eady from the Tavistock group said: ‘We collected all these signatures in a short space of time and most of the people who signed were outraged about the plans.’

The team met with a representative of the CCG on Monday who spoke to the members about their concerns.

‘There were various areas we are concerned about — we were really concerned that there was no public consultation. We are interested to take it further but how long and where it will take us, who knows?’

The petition is not accepting any new signatures, but Mr Eady advised people who wish to voice their opinions on this subject to writes letters to either West Devon and Torridge MP Geoffrey Cox, or county and borough councillors.