Campaigners rally against proposed hospital cuts

Campaigners against potentially huge cuts to hospital services in Devon have taken their protest to the offices of the NHS, telling health bosses that people will die as a result of their plans.

No proposals have yet been released but as we reported last week, a leaked document suggests sweeping changes - which include ONLY having maternity units in Plymouth and Exeter.

Wearing red to symbolise a line that can't be crossed ordinary men and women from across Devon marched on the offices of the NHS in Exeter today.

Among them Dee Owen who owes her daughter's life to the closeness of Barnstaple's now under threat maternity unit. She says lives are at risk:

The campaigners gathered because a leaked document outlined sweeping changes particularly in North Devon where its proposed maternity, paediatrics and stroke services would close and six hundred hospital beds across the entire county would also be cut.

They say the proposed changes will effect everyone in Devon regardless of where they live because if services are cut in North and South Devon and transferred to Plymouth's Derriford Hospital or the Royal Devon and Exeter then those centralised services will be under pressure more so than ever before.

The leaked document is called the Sustainability and Transformation Plan and had only been released to the medics and administrators as a solution to a projected half billion pound NHS deficit in Devon by 2021.

The next mass protest is in Barnstaple on October 22nd. Seth Conway, ITV News, Exeter.