PRAISE for Devon Doctors, which provides the out of hours service at Okehampton Hospital, was voiced at a meeting in the town on Monday.

It came in the wake of complaints about the service with some residents saying they had been told to drive miles to another town when seeking treatment late at night.

But the chief executive of Devon Doctors had a message for residents: 'If you're not happy, please let us know.'

As well as Devon Doctors, the meeting in Okehampton Town Hall included speakers from Devon Primary Care Trust and GP Paul Nielson, who spearheaded the campaign to build Okehampton's hospital.

Dr Nielson told the meeting that Devon's residents were fortunate to have many community hospitals in the county.

'We all work so hard to make sure our patients are not transferred and there is a great sense of sadness when we do have to transfer,' he said.

'It is very difficult to run an out of hours service when we don't have enough beds. The pressure we are under is colossal.

'Over Christmas we had more than 10,000 emergency calls and I have to say it's a great success by Devon Doctors that they had virtually no complaints.

'On a limited budget we offer a fantastic service and I am very proud to work with Devon Doctors.'

Devon Doctors chief executive Chris Wright said the organisation was not part of Devon Primary Care Trust — it paid for the service Devon Doctors provided. He said Devon Doctors was a social enterprise and any profit was put back into the community.

'We strive extremely hard to balance out the budget which is given to us and I am here this evening to listen to what people have to say and do something about it,' he said. 'We can't get it right all the time but we do our best.

'Devon Doctors provides a high amount of care and personally I am very proud of the service and all the staff who work extremely hard to maintain it.

'The biggest reason we have that high standard is not because of the funding the PCT gives us, it is because of the GPs who support us.

'They work hard with the out of hours service and having them makes a huge difference.'

He said that as a result of the quality of the out of hours service, the PCT had renewed its contract with Devon Doctors.

One of the main issues highlighted was the amount of patients who had phoned the service only to be told they would have to go to Tiverton.

Former Okehampton mayor Cllr Tony Leech felt the service could be improved: 'We have a wonderful, modern hospital here in Okehampton and it would be great for the people and the town if we could have a full time doctor here.'

Dr Nielson said: 'Okehampton would be a fantastic place to have a doctor all night. It is a great hub for the community but it comes down to funding.'

Mr Wright said: 'We used to have an overnight GP but he only did visits every three nights. How do we justify the cost of that?'

But he stressed his concerns with patients being sent to Tiverton: 'If a patient uses the out of ours service in Okehampton, I never want them to be sent to Tiverton.

'I want to know who was told and who told them so that this can be sorted out.

'If people are misinformed it affects the town, which can cause problems if patients don't trust the service.

'So my message to Okehampton is, if you are not happy, please let Devon Doctors know so that we can do something about it.'

Mr Wright said Devon Doctors constantly monitored the service it provided.

'We get a lot of phone calls and we measure how long it can take to pick up the phone and we make sure patients don't get an engaged tone.

'We also measure how many people put the phone down and I want to now measure how long it takes for us to call them back.'

In 2006, Devon Doctors asked all the practices in Devon what they thought of its service. It sends out questionnaires annually to all GPs working out-of-hours in the county to find out their opinions. It also hands out 375 questionnaires every six weeks to a random selection of patients.

Mr Wright said: 'We have three hundred thousand people on our records around Devon.

'When we asked Okehampton what they thought, not one person said the service was poor.'

Devon Doctors is owned by all the 176 practices and around two thirds of Devon's GPs work out of hours shifts.