LOCAL MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has launched an investigation into the closure of beds at Minehead and Williton hospitals.

He has asked for meetings with health officials in the area with a view to preparing a file on the issue for Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said he was furious at the way bed spaces had been lost, which would result in patients being sent to hospitals outside the area.

Last year, six stroke unit beds at Williton Hospital were closed, and a week before Christmas came the abrupt closure of ten beds at Minehead Hospital.

Andy Heron, chief operating officer of Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, said this was the result of of a “deteriorating staffing situation”.

Patients and some staff were transferred to a mothballed ward at Williton.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said he had already raised the issue of the closures with Mr Hunt: “I have promised him a full report as to what has taken place because it is clearly a ridiculous situation to have a modern hospital that was opened only six years ago standing empty,” he said.

“Nobody was warned in advance that this might be happening and it came as a real bombshell for everyone.

“It has been suggested that this crisis has arisen because of a deliberate non-recruitment policy ordered by the trust in order to save money, which left the hospital running on a knife-edge.

“If it turns out to be the case that this crisis was at least partly self-inflicted then it is clearly mismanagement on the highest scale.”

Mr Liddell-Grainger added: “The impact of both these bed losses is now being widely felt across West Somerset particularly by patients’ relatives, partly because public transport provision is very limited and hospital visiting outside the district therefore difficult.

“I am reluctant to say it but this very looks very much like another case of the authorities saying ‘It’s only West Somerset so it doesn’t matter’.

“I am not prepared to accept that attitude. People in West Somerset have the same right as anyone else of access to the health services their taxes pay for – and I intend to see they get it.”