Save Torbay Hospital is dedicated to protecting and enhancing healthcare services at Torbay Hospital and within the wider community of Torbay and South Devon.
We believe that every member of our community deserves timely, equitable, and effective healthcare, and we are committed to ensuring Torbay Hospital continues to be the heart of that care for generations to come.
About the Campaign
We began as The Heart Campaign, formed in response to proposals that put emergency cardiac services at Torbay Hospital at risk of being centralised at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital in Exeter.
Torbay's cardiac unit has built its reputation on rapid treatment, strong clinical practice and good outcomes for patients. Consultants have reported that national audit data placed it as high as 4th in the country for emergency angioplasty (stent) outcomes. The department has received national recognition from the Royal College of Physicians for excellence in patient care and has been designated an NHS Beacon Service for coronary heart disease.
Thousands of people across Torbay and South Devon stood with us, and those cardiology proposals were paused.
Paused is not withdrawn. That distinction matters, and we have not forgotten it.
As our research and Freedom of Information work continued, it became clear that our concerns could not stop at cardiology. Questions now surround the future of pathology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, and Accident & Emergency itself. Taken one at a time, each change can be explained away. Taken together, they raise a far larger question about the long-term future of Torbay Hospital.
That question is why The Heart Campaign has become Save Torbay Hospital.
Our Fundraising Goal
£40,000
Help us protect acute services at Torbay Hospital
0% of our target
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Every contribution brings us closer to protecting hospital services in Torbay
- Bank
- NatWest
- Account Name
- Save Torbay Hospital Ltd
- Sort Code
- 54 10 39
- Account Number
- 16174712
Please use your name as the payment reference so we can thank you.
All post-campaign surplus funds will be dontated to Rowcroft Hospice.
Help Fund the Fight to Save Torbay Hospital
Save Torbay Hospital is fighting to protect the future of Torbay Hospital and the vital acute services our communities depend upon. We need funds to support our legal challenge, professional advice, public campaigning and the costs of raising awareness across South Devon.
We are run by volunteers, and every donation helps us continue this fight. Please donate if you can. Every contribution, large or small, helps us stand up for Torbay Hospital and keep vital hospital services local.
Together, we can fight to Save Torbay Hospital.
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Why It Matters
Currently, if you have a heart attack in South Devon, the paramedics in the ambulance will do an ECG, which is sent in real time to the Catheter Laboratory (CATHLAB) at Torbay Hospital. As soon as you arrive you will be taken straight to the cardiac unit for immediate treatment. Once the heart muscles are starved of oxygen they die, so a stent may be inserted to return blood flow to your heart. If you are not treated within a very short space of time, you may live but your heart will not be the same, and you may be left with severe impacts on your health.
Medical care should be as close as possible to the point of need. There is a ‘golden hour’ from when you first have symptoms of a heart attack to get to a hospital for treatment. At the moment that is Torbay Hospital. If cardiac services are moved to the RD&E, the chances of survival are reduced dramatically for many patients who may be unable to reach treatment in the critical time span. Any relocation of PPCI services must be supported by transparent evidence demonstrating that patients will continue to receive treatment within national safety time standards and without any deterioration in clinical outcomes.
We believe that if we lose even a section of the department, all cardiology services will be affected, and the rest of acute services at the hospital may be at risk. The hospital could be reduced to providing only basic care.
Just take a look at the map attached here. If you live in Torbay, the additional travel time to Exeter significantly reduces your chances of survival. If you lived south of Dartmouth, the situation becomes even more critical. The extended journey times put patients at grave risk.
So PLEASE if there is any way you can get the word out to as many people as possible, we would appreciate it. 'People Power' is the way forward and although the campaign has been featured on television, on numerous occasions in Torbay Weekly and on social media, there are still thousands and thousands of the local population who are unaware. So, if you are a member of a club, please tell all the other members; all family members need to be included as this is not just a problem for those of us getting older. Heart problems can hit you at any age and even if you are super-fit.
If the Cardiac Unit is merged with the RD&E, we believe the whole health system in Torbay and surrounding areas will be seriously compromised and the knock-on effect of that will ripple out to every other department of the hospital.
To save lives we MUST SAVE our Cardiac Unit.
Follow us on our Facebook page ‘Save Torbay Hospital’ for updates.
The critical facts of heart attack
Video presentation by award-winning cardiologist Dr Phil Keeling
A Closer Look at the People Involved
When a hospital board considers dismantling life-saving services, you'd expect those decision-makers to understand the community they serve. You'd expect them to know what it means for a Brixham fisherman to reach Exeter during a heart attack. Or for an elderly Paignton resident to make repeated journeys for cardiac care. You'd expect at least some of them to live in the communities that would lose these services.
You'd be wrong.
An examination of Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust's Board of Trustees reveals a striking pattern: not a single trustee lists Torbay as their location. Plymouth, Exeter, South Hams, Teignbridge, Totnes, even Saltash in Cornwall - but not Torbay itself.
These aren't accusations of impropriety - these are documented professional histories available on the Trust's own website. But they raise an obvious question: when the board votes on whether to move Torbay's nationally-ranked cardiac unit to a lower-performing Exeter hospital, whose interests are they representing?