NHS England is leading the clinical network which will see changes to the way vascular services are delivered across North Devon and Somerset.
For patients from Northern Devon it will mean that you will receive planned and emergency inpatient care at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, rather than at North Devon District Hospital, as happens now. Services which will still be available at North Devon District Hospital will be minor operations (which can be undertaken as Day case procedures) outpatients and diagnostic services.
The public engagement launched in October 2015 and people from North Devon are being encouraged to give their views on how they feel they would be impacted by the proposed changes to the way this care will be offered in future.
More information is here
The patient survey is here and takes about 10 minutes to complete.
The answers to this questionnaire are being collated by NHS England South.
Background information
If you would like to know more about the research evidence that supports this work please click here
If you would like more information about the proposed service model please click here
A full copy of the service specification can be obtained from here
The views of the Northern Devon Healthcare Trust
The Northern Devon Healthcare Trust has yet to respond to the engagement but plans on doing so.
We feel it is vitally important that rural communities are not disadvantaged when accessing healthcare and we will be pressing the specialist commissioners to mitigate the transfer of the services to Taunton.