PETITIONS calling for all of Williton Community Hospital’s current beds to remain open are now being signed in Watchet and Minehead as pressure grows.

The petitions, already being signed at Williton Parish Council office, have now also been placed in the Watchet Town Council office at the Boat Museum, along with one circulating in Minehead and another in the town at Toucan Wholefoods on The Parade.

The petition, started by the hospital’s League of Friends, opposes the ’temporary’ closure in January of six of the hospital’s 12 beds for stroke patients, and demands the threatened beds be kept for general use - keeping a total of 20 beds altogether.

Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, has been asked by Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which commissions services, to close the six beds because of a new scheme to support stroke patients in their own homes.