THE ‘Save Our Hospital Services’ (SOHS) campaign will be holding a public meeting in the Holsworthy Memorial Hall on Wednesday, January 25, starting at 7pm.

The purpose of the meeting will be to inform the public of the planned changes to hospital services in North Devon.

Under the current ‘Sustainability and Transformations Plan’ (STP) all acute services at North Devon District Hospital (NDDH) are under review, and a number could be downgraded or cut all together.

These services include maternity, paediatrics, neonatal/special care baby unit, A&E and stroke facilities.

If these services were to be cut, people of Holsworthy and North Devon could face a journey to Exeter or Plymouth to receive care.

The public are being invited to the SOHS meeting in the Memorial Hall on January 25, to find out more about the proposals and how they can voice their opinions on the STP.

SOHS was established six months ago in North Devon and Torridge to prevent the closure or cuts to any hospital services currently provided by NDDH in Barnstaple.

A review of acute services, provided by NDDH in Devon, is currently underway —placing a number of services under threat of closure or cuts. Proposals from these reviews are expected to be published in six to eight weeks time.

Phillip Wearne, member of the co-ordinating committee of SOHS, said: “Managers and NHS administrators will tell you that no decisions have been made. Specifically that’s true. Generally it is not.

“We are coming to Holsworthy to tell you that the parameters and confines within which this review process is taking place means that changes and cuts to the services on which we all rely are inevitable. And by the time such changes and cuts are announced it will be much harder to resist or reverse them.”

The next public meeting in Holsworthy is the last in a series of nine, which started in Combe Martin and Lynton late last year.

The last meeting was held in Braunton’s parish hall on Friday, January 13, and had to be split into two simultaneous meetings due to the large number of attendees — around 400 people/residents attended the two events to express their concern over these proposals.

During this meeting it was highlighted that there are plans to cut a further 590 beds in Devon and hundreds of nurses’ jobs. One comment from the audience summed up the feelings towards the new plans, as they said: “It’s our NHS, not theirs!”

The next meeting will be held in Holsworthy, with an aim of explaining in a clear manner what these proposals will mean for North Devon and how they will affect Holsworthy.

Mr Wearne added: “No town in North Devon or Torridge knows better how such proposals for the withdrawal of services can be successfully fought. Holsworthy did that with its community hospital. Now we all need to do the same for our general, acute service district hospital.”

It is hoped that a good number will attend the next meeting in Holsworthy’s Memorial Hall on January 25, which will be chaired by town mayor Jon Hutchings, so an overall perspective of Devon residents’ views on the proposals can be heard.

For more information on SOHS visit their website www.sohs.org,uk or visit their Facebook or Twitter pages.