Hospital visit for Bideford councillors

BIDEFORD town councillors are to go into hospital. They are taking up an invitation by the Northern Devon Healthcare Trust to visit Bideford Hospital and see for themselves the services it offers to the local community. The council wrote to the trust expr

BIDEFORD town councillors are to go into hospital.They are taking up an invitation by the Northern Devon Healthcare Trust to visit Bideford Hospital and see for themselves the services it offers to the local community.The council wrote to the trust expressing concern at the night-time closure of the hospital's minor injuries unit.In response, Jo Gibbs, director of operations at the trust, assured the council that the out-of-hours service was under daily review.Staff records showed that, to date, none of the telephone callers between 8.30pm and 8.30am required the services which would be provided by the MIU -such as cuts, bruises and burns -and in each case the patients had been correctly re-directed to accident and emergency, their GP or NHS Direct, she pointed out.There had also been no reported incidents of people turning up unannounced for treatment when the MIU was closed.The Trust had also asked the Devon Doctors out of hours GP service and the South West Ambulance Trust for a similar analysis of out-of-hours activity in Bideford since the unit was closed and, again, no adverse events had been reported. The trust would continue to monitor closely the activity of out-of-hours over the next two months, after which they would put together a more formal consultation document to give everyone the opportunity to consider the long-term future of the MIU, she said.