NO STROKE UNIT CHANGES 'UNTIL ALTERNATIVES IN PLACE'
Yeovil Hospital's existing stroke services will not be reduced until their replacements over the border in Dorset are ready, health bosses have confirmed.
Plans were approved in January to remove the hyper-acute stroke unit (HASU), meaning the most urgent stroke patients would be transported to either Dorchester or Taunton for treatment.
Residents on either side of the border were concerned the new unit at Dorset County Hospital would not be ready before Yeovil's existing HASU had shut down.
Health bosses have now provided assurances that none of Yeovil's existing provision would be closed until the new unit in Dorchester was ready to go.
NHS Somerset's Integrated Care Board (ICB) voted to have a single emergency stroke unit for the county at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton.
Under the ICB plans, Yeovil District Hospital will keep 12 acute stroke beds where people can be cared for from 72 hours after a stroke, but it will lose its four hyper-acute beds.
The ICB said the change would lead to "better outcomes for patients".
West Dorset MP Chris Loder, whose constituency includes Dorset County Hospital, met NHS Somerset bosses last week after writing a letter setting out his "significant reservations" about the proposals.
Following the discussions, a spokesman for NHS Somerset told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): "The changes agreed will take 18 months to implement.
"The process will make sure that the services needed (at Dorset County Hospital) will be ready to go, before emergency stroke services at Yeovil move."
Councillor Adam Dance, who is standing to be the next MP of Yeovil, said he shared Mr Loder's concerns and would keep up the pressure on the Department of Health and Social Care to re-examine the changes.
He said: "I would prefer that he was demanding, as I am, an answer to why relocate the HASU to Dorchester, when we could just reinvest at Yeovil?"
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