Foord resumes fight to help hospital
NEWLY re-elected MP Richard Foord has written to Health Secretary Wes Streeting on his first day in the job to raise concerns about the future of Seaton Hospital, in Devon.
Mr Streeting has been invited to visit the hospital to discuss its future. Last October, Mr Foord raised the alarm about plans by NHS Devon to turn over a whole wing of the hospital – built for using funds raised by the local community – to NHS Property Services, due to being unable to afford almost £300,000 a year in rental charges.
This would mean that NHS Property Services, a Governmentowned company whose operations are conducted within the guidelines set out by the Department for Health and Social Care, would then look to either sell off or demolish the wing, and leave the hospital diminished.
The wing used to provide a number of local community hospital beds, until they were cut in 2017. Mr Foord raised these concerns repeatedly with the previous Conservative Government.
Mr Foord, the Liberal Democrat MP for Honiton and Sidmouth, said: “People are fed up with warm words, they want to see action.
“That’s why, on my first day as MP for Honiton & Sidmouth, I have written to the new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, to demand action to save all of Seaton Hospital.
“For months I tried to get the Conservatives to act, yet they chose not to. This has left the local community without certainty about the future of their cherished hospital. With a new Government, I am renewing the fight to protect our rural NHS and community hospitals.”