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Bed restrictions to remain at Newton Stewart Hospital

More nurses are needed. Credit: Lynne Cameron/PA Wire/PA Images

A limit on the number of beds at Newton Stewart Cottage Hospital is to remain for the foreseeable future.

The decision to reduce the number of inpatient beds from 22 to 14 was taken in May 2018, because of problems recruiting nursing staff to the hospital.

Since then, all patients who have needed a bed have been accommodated.

Dumfries and Galloway's Health and Social Care Partnership say they have succeeded in employing more nurses, and that they had planned to lift the restriction in September.

However, some nursing staff have now moved to the Galloway Community Hospital, leaving the facility in Newton Stewart once again short of staff.

The Health and Social Care senior management team will be updated within the next three months on whether to lift the cap on beds.

While we very much welcome that staff have chosen to continue to work within Wigtownshire in other busy, demanding frontline roles, we are unfortunately not able to lift the bed limit at the cottage hospital at this time.

– Graham Abrines, General Manager of Community Health and Social Care