More services are to be provided at Dawlish Community Hospital as part of a local NHS reorganisation that will see Teignmouth Hospital closing down.

The NHS has decided to move all services currently provided at Teignmouth Hospital to other locations, including the £8million new Health and Wellbeing Centre due to be built in Teignmouth town centre.

The Devon Clinical Commissioning Group has been consulting the public on the proposed changes, and last Thursday its governing body agreed to go ahead with them.

This means specialist outpatient clinics, except ear nose and throat clinics and specialist orthopaedic clinics, will move from Teignmouth Community Hospital to Dawlish Community Hospital.

Day case procedures will also move from the Teignmouth hospital to Dawlish, and community clinics will be held at the new centre.

With no services left to be commissioned out of the existing hospital site, it would then be up to the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust to determine the future of the site – with a sale to reinvest finance into local NHS services the most likely outcome.

More than 3,000 people had signed a petition against the plans, which was handed in to Devon County Council's health and adult care scrutiny committee last month.

But the Independent Healthwatch Report, which followed the consultation on the scheme in September and October, said the majority of respondents (61.3 per cent) supported the overall proposal, compared to 34 per cent who didn't.

And while those in favour of the changes were higher in Dawlish (77.63 per cent), in Teignmouth, more than half (58.13 per cent) supported the overall proposal.

The CCG agreed that they were content that the case for change had been made, the consultation process was sufficient and the outcomes had been taken into account.

When they met on Thursday, the CCG Board also agreed to:

• continue with a model of community-based intermediate care, reversing the decision to establish 12 rehabilitation beds at Teignmouth Community Hospital
• request Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust consider in detail the suggestions put forward for additional services at the Health and Wellbeing Centre
• request Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust consider providing secondary office space at Dawlish Community Hospital for physiotherapists, occupational therapists and district nurses
• request Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust work with Teignbridge District Council to mitigate parking issues for staff and patients as far as possible, and to work to further support and enhance the development of community transport to the hospital sites.

The board agreed that the health and wellbeing centre would ensure the right environment to deliver care now and into the future, and that the services that can be delivered in the community rather than bed-based services would be more sustainable.

Dr Paul Johnson, clinical chair of Devon CCG, said: "I hope this will be for the benefit for the people in the South Devon area and the opportunity that comes with co-location and home support in the coastal region."

The new £8million Health and Wellbeing Centre in Teignmouth is to be built by Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust and is due to open in 2022, subject to planning permission, but the principle of the development was not part of the consultation, as it has already been agreed.

It will house GPs from Teignmouth's larger practice, Channel View Medical Group, the health and wellbeing team and Volunteering in Health, and subject to the decision by the Governing Body, the most frequently used community clinics – physiotherapy, podiatry and audiology – would also move to the Health and Wellbeing Centre, along with specialist ear, nose and throat and specialist orthopaedic clinics.

Reasons for closing Teignmouth Community Hospital

The governing body of NHS Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, when agreeing to consult on the plans earlier in 2020, were told there were four main reasons why the CCG wished to effectively close the hospital and combine care in the new health and wellbeing hub:

1. The new way of caring for people in the community is so successful, the 12 rehabilitation beds at Teignmouth Community Hospital have been found not to be needed.
2. It would safeguard the future of Teignmouth's GP practices, which currently suffer from cramped space; deteriorating buildings and access issues.
3. It would make the most of the local community hospital estate. as Teignmouth Community Hospital needs significant investment, around £1.5m, to bring it up to modern standards, and Dawlish Hospital has space available and ample parking nearby.
4. The local and national NHS strategy is to further integrate health and care services by bringing many different health and care organisations together to deliver care centred on a person's needs, often delivered in their home.

The board were told that the Teignmouth hospital cannot be economically reconfigured to provide modern facilities required today and in the future, and that any extensive renovation would require a high capital cost that would not achieve the further integration with primary care.

It was also discounted due to the fact the existing hospital site is not in a town centre location and while there would be some people who would now face an additional travel time, others would find it easier to access healthcare.