PATIENTS in Chillington are being restricted from using the hospital in Kingsbridge, due to arbitrary boundary issues and a lack of communication between different clinical commissioning groups.

The confusion is caused by Chillington Health Centre falling within the Southern Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, while Salcombe and Kingsbridge practices report to the Northern, Eastern and Western Clinical Commissioning Group.

Daphne Jefferson, South Hams League of Friends committee member said: ‘It makes no sense, it’s not in the interests of local patients to not be allowed to use South Hams Hospital.

‘If a patient sees a consultant in Torbay, they will not be allowed to have their chemotherapy or their dialysis at the hospital in Kingsbridge, because these facilities are provided by Derriford and the NEW Devon CCG.’

The League of Friends have been told it is a ‘communication problem’, and have repeatedly raised the issue with Dr Sarah Wollaston MP and Southern Devon CCG with the argument that ‘as the facilities are already in place, it is very frustrating that patients seeing a Torbay consultant cannot make use of them.’

One patient from Chillington, who didn’t wish to be named, said: ‘If the GP surgery has opted to come under South Devon CCG, then the patients are only offered hospitals that come under Torbay.

‘Over the past three years, I have travelled from Chillington to Paignton, Totnes, Dartmouth, Newton Abbot and Torbay for physiotherapy, x-rays and pain management referrals, when quite possibly I could have gone to my local hospital in Kingsbridge only four miles away.

‘We are all well aware of the lack of IT visibility between Derriford and Torbay hospitals and this is another case where a ‘black hole’ in the computer referral system forces a patient to travel longer distances than necessary for their appointment.

‘Yes we do have a choice, but our local hospital in Kingsbridge is not one of them. If it was, maybe more local people would be using its services.’

The NHS Constitution explicitly gives people living in England the right to choose where to receive treatment.

On the NHS website it states: ‘You can choose the organisation that provides your NHS care when you’re referred for your first appointment with a consultant. So if your GP recommends that you see a specialist, you can choose where and when to see them.’

Daphne continued: ‘From December, South Hams Hospital started dialysis, and we’re hoping to offer dialysis to holiday makers coming from other parts of the country.

‘Therefore we cannot see what the argument is to not allow Chillington patients the same option.

‘The CCG cannot give any justifiable explanation for this, it makes no sense for patients who may live within walking distance of the hospital to be sent elsewhere, when the same treatment can be given at Kingsbridge. It is certainly not in the patients interest.

‘I think the patients need to be aware of this. Patients feel very vulnerable, and it’s a problem.’