Health bosses insist no plans to close Galloway Community Hospital

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Health bosses insist they have no plans to close Galloway Community Hospital. Dumfries and Galloway Integration Joint Board will consider a paper looking at how the Stranraer facility can be supported and its services retained.

The Galloway Community Hospital Action Group had feared a review of the hospital, combined with the health board needing to save nearly £30million, could lead to the facility closing.

But chair of the IJB’s transformation, innovation and futures committee, Ian Carruthers, said: “At our meeting in May we were very clear in our support of Galloway Community Hospital, and this is reflected in the proposed recommendation which the IJB will consider on September 24. “Work looking at how GCH is supported is long-planned, but it appeared on our agenda at the same time as news broke of the NHS’s major financial challenges.

This led to public concern which was perhaps understandable, but without foundation. “Committee members recognise the important role that Galloway Community Hospital, which opened in 2006, plays in meeting the health needs of the local community, and were unanimous in their agreement to recommend that the IJB directs the NHS board to explore ways of supporting the hospital and sustaining its services.” Action group members were unhappy that health officials failed to attend a public meeting earlier this year and had written to NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care Secretary Neil Gray asking him to step in.