THE recent proposal by Kennet and Wiltshire Primary Care Trust to close Devizes Community Hospital threatens to undermine health care provision throughout the area.

The new health plan has been driven, not by the health needs of the local community, but by a desire to cut its financial expenditure at all costs.

In place of the hospital there is the promise of a new medical facility on the Green Lane site, yet this seems to be nothing more than a change of premises for the GPs and the health centre.

The plan also envisages a new nursing home, which is hardly an adequate replacement for the town's exisitng hospital.

And the fact that it is likely to be privately run will have an adverse effect on both redeployed staff and patients.

Finally, the trust's aim of replacing a hospital with an improved community service that promises to treat more people at home, thus avoiding needless admissions to hospital, is contradicted by its declared intention of cutting £2 million from the community services budget.

Overall, the proposal means no acute hospital beds, no casualty and no maternity services.

The decision is even more illogical if we consider that there is curently a shortage of beds in the whole of the south west.

Indeed, the decision reflects a lack of co-ordinated comprehensive health care planning across the region.

Hospital staff, through their unions, intend to campaign against the threatened closure and we urge the people of Devizes to join us and help safeguard the future of the hospital.

ROGER DAVEY

Senior Steward

UNISON

Swindon and Wiltshire

Health Care Branch

Warminster