Cllr Martin Wrigley on Teignmouth Hospital

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Transcript

00:00 Save Timmoth Hospital! Save Timmoth Hospital!

00:07 So what we're looking at today is referring the decision to close Timmoth Hospital to the Secretary of State.

00:13 This is a long and convoluted process. We've gone through an investigation to see whether they have correctly made the case

00:20 about closing Timmoth Hospital and replacing it with the Health and Wellbeing Centre.

00:25 We don't think they have. Now, Health and Wellbeing Centre, housing the new doctors in the middle of Timmoth, fantastic.

00:32 The GPs in Timmoth desperately need new premises, so we desperately need that.

00:36 But we need Timmoth Hospital as well. And the idea of closing one so you can have just the other just doesn't stack up.

00:43 That's what we're saying to the Secretary of State, hoping that they'll agree with us.

00:46 For many people it's massive, it's a huge part of the history of Timmoth. It's the first purpose-built NHS hospital in the country.

00:53 Fantastic piece of history. What I'm most concerned about, though, is going forward into the future.

01:00 So if we build a new Health and Wellbeing Centre, if NHS builds a new Health and Wellbeing Centre,

01:06 puts all of the GPs in there and some of the services from Timmoth Hospital and gets rid of the hospital site, that's fine for today.

01:14 But what happens next year, the year after, when GPs are asked to do more, when they need to expand,

01:19 when the local population expands, they will run out of space.

01:23 Five years ago or so we had in Dawlish a plan to build another 2,000 or 3,000 houses.

01:30 The local GP surgery expanded to cater for all those houses.

01:34 They are already full and need more space. Those new houses have only partly been built.

01:40 So what they're predicting in their space requirements today will not be enough in five or ten years' time.

01:46 If they build it all into the Health and Wellbeing Centre in the middle of town, there is nowhere to expand.

01:52 We need the hospital.