MINEHEAD Community Hospital will close all its inpatient beds from next week and all patients and some staff will be transferred to Williton Hospital.
The bombsell announcement was made to staff on Wednesday afternoon by Andy Heron, chief operating officer of Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
He told them the beds would be temporarily closed “on the grounds of patient safety after closely monitoring the deteriorating staffing situation”.
And they are expected to stay out of action for several months.
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Carhampton public house reopened as four generations of family return to rootsStaff were told at 3.30pm on Wednesday afternoon that patients and some staff would be moving to Williton from early next week. Staff not on duty were notified by post.
In a letter to the staff, Mr Heron said that all other hospital services would continue to operate as normal.
“From early next week we will be looking to move the patients in the ten beds at Minehead Community Hospital into the mothballed ward at Williton which has been cleaned and prepared over the past week in anticipation of this decision being necessary,” he said.
Full story in the Free Press (December 16)