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<\/p>\n‘Residents are entitled to understand how future healthcare needs will be met’<\/p>\n
Dr Phil Keeling and Susie Colley at the Torbay Heart Campaign meeting(Image: Guy Henderson)<\/p>\n
Campaigners fighting for Torbay\u2019s healthcare services have called on the Prime Minister to step in.<\/p>\n
The Heart Campaign began amid fears that local health providers were planning to move crucial emergency cardiac care services from Torbay<\/a> Hospital to Exeter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Supporters said lives would be lost as a result of the crucial extra time spent travelling, particularly during the busy summer season.<\/p>\n Devon\u2019s NHS<\/a> integrated care board then amended its plans in the face of the protests, but the campaign\u2019s leaders fear there will still be changes, and the bay\u2019s hospital could be down-graded in future.<\/p>\n In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, campaign chair Susie Colley writes: \u201cMany residents, patients, carers and clinicians across South Devon<\/a> are increasingly concerned about the future of acute healthcare services at Torbay Hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cOur campaign is not opposed to NHS modernisation, service improvement or the development of more efficient ways of working. We fully recognise the significant financial and workforce pressures facing the NHS. However, we believe that any reconfiguration of services must be transparent, clinically justified, properly consulted upon and demonstrably improve patient access and outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n She says supporters, hundreds of whom gathered for a recent public meeting at a Torquay<\/a> hotel, are not only concerned about cardiac services but also \u2018a gradual reduction\u2019 in the role of the hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ask how moving services further away from the communities they serve can improve access for elderly residents, vulnerable patients, carers and those without private transport?\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n