SPEAKING at a meeting of Holsworthy Community Forum recently Karen Longhurst-Prior, a staff nurse at Holsworthy Community Hospital who with two assistants runs the outpatients clinics at the hospital, gave details of the way in which outpatient services are being expanded at Holsworthy, writes Christine Williams.

Working alongside visiting consultants, pharmacy teams and Exeter and Derriford Hospitals, she aimed to improve the services and medical treatments at a local level. This eased the pressure on the main hospitals and district nurses and meant patients did not have to make long journeys.

Currently she is undertaking training to offer better oncology services at Holsworthy. Although it would be March before the town knew whether or not Holsworthy had lost its beds permanently, which were closed on a temporary basis by the Northern Devon Healthcare Trust (NDHT) pending investigations into low bed occupancy and staff levels, Mrs Longhurst-Prior explained that the hospital would carry on without the beds and become a much larger and more crucial part of the local health service, offering new and better equipped clinics. Indeed she was looking at other services the hospital could offer locally and welcomed ideas.

Finally, for the hospital services to continue and expand, she urged the residents of Holsworthy to ask their own GPs if they could access their treatment at the local hospital.

Mrs Longhurst-Prior’s colleague Amanda Jennings, of NDHT, said a six week course entitled ‘Forward and Beyond’ would be run at the hospital beginning on October 5. It would concentrate on the health and wellbeing of people with possible life limiting illnesses and would encompass mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, financial advice and complementary therapies among other things.

For further information contact [email protected] or telephone 01409 259073.