Residents from around the Ottery parish and beyond are expected to gather tomorrow morning at 11am outside Ottery Hospital, to express their anger at NHS Property Services acquiring Ottery Hospital (and 11 others across Eastern Devon) charging the local NHS huge commercial rents for the building.
There are fears that if the local NHS (currently around £80m in debt) cannot pay the rents the building may be sold off, as has happened in other areas of the country.
Local people fundraised around £250,000 to help build the hospital just 20 years ago - and now the government is deliberately putting our hospital’s future at risk.
NHS Property Services is a limited company wholly owned by the secretary of state for health - see http://www.property.nhs.uk/
The company’s job is to ‘manage’ the NHS Property portfolio and sell off buildings that are “surplus to requirements.”
Hope to see lots of you tomorrow to send a strong message to our MPs and to central government.
Bring your placards!