10:35am Thursday 21st June 2007
By Jill Crooks
The new neighbourhood team of health professionals in Devizes who will look after patients in their own homes when hospital beds are closed on June 30, will not be working 24 hours a day, despite health bosses' assurances that it was ready to swing fully into action.
Gabrielle Tilley, a district nurse and co-ordinator of the team, said a shortage of community support workers meant the team could not work 24 hours a day from the beginning.
She thought it could be September before that happens and that, at the moment, there were not many people needing care during the night, and night cover would be provided by GPs.
A spokeswoman for the Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, which runs the services, said: "The team will be working extended hours from 7am to 10pm and they will gradually be working towards 24-hour cover.
"We don't have a fixed date but it will be during the summer."
Tony Barron, chairman of Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, had given a guarantee that no services would be closed before a replacement was up and running, when the decision was first taken to close beds at Devizes Hospital.
DASH2 (Devizes Action to Save Our Hospital) member Charles Winchcombe said: "My understanding was that the neighbourhood team would be working 24 hours a day before they finally closed the inpatient beds at Devizes Hospital."
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