Whose smell was it – was Hugo Swire behind the Seaton-Sidmouth switch?
A smug Hugo Swire MP told BBC’s Sunday Politics this morning that East Devon had more community hospitals than western Devon and than the national average. He failed to mention that it has many more over-85s too. He backed the NEW Devon CCG’s plans to replace community hospital beds with care at home, and said we must ’embrace change’.
Swire knows that beds in Exmouth and Sidmouth, in his constituency are safe from closure, so he is happy to write off Seaton (which he no longer represents after boundary changes a few years back) and Honiton.
Swire’s self-satisfied comments raise the question of whether he played any role in the CCG’s bizarre, unexplained, last-minute switch of 24 beds from Seaton to Sidmouth. Clearly had the CCG stuck with its original preferred option of closing beds in Sidmouth, they would have given Claire Wright a huge issue – which might well have seen her taking Swire’s seat in the general election.
Readers will recall that during the consultation, Swire was already saying that if beds had to go, they should stay in Sidmouth. Did Sir Hugo, or Tories acting on his behalf, lobby the CCG? How did the CCG respond? Both
have questions to answer.
Swire’s colleague Neil Parish MP told me and other Seaton councillors that the decision ‘smells’. Whose smell was it?
I appeared on the same edition of Sunday Politics as Swire, but was not in the studio to respond to him. Here I am being interviewed!
Unfortunately the Labour MEP for the South West, Claire Moody, who was on with Swire, obviously didn’t know much about East Devon hospitals and failed to respond.
(YOU WILL BE ABLE TO WATCH THE PROGRAMME ON BBC iPLAYER SOON.)
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 
June 25, 2017 at 12:48 pm
We need to give Martin Shaw all our support – Seaton resident. Save our hospital beds!!
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June 25, 2017 at 12:52 pm
Hugo’s comment just shows how little he understands what is happening – having previously cut community hospital beds in Western Devon it is not surprising that East Devon has more community beds.
But when they have made the proposed cuts in East Devon, then Western Devon will have more community beds than East Devon – so by Hugo’s logic, there will need to be more cuts in Western Devon. Etc. etc. ad-infinitum…
Or perhaps Hugo does understand it completely and is simply conspiring with the rest of the Government (of which, lets not forget, he used to be a minister of state) to destroy the NHS by stealth.
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