In March 1901 Miss Wills offered £ 500 if the sum of £ 1,500 was raised towards building a new hospital as by now the old building was in need of repair.

The new hospital faced several challenges, and the nursing staff worked long hours, but over time a maternity unit and operating theatre were added and in 1938 funds were raised to buy an X Ray machine.

In 1948 a League of Friends was formed, and the Ministry of Health took over the running of the hospital.

In 1955 the few maternity beds were put back into general use, and maternity care was moved to Yeovil Hospital and Balidon on West Coker Road.

The outpatient’s extension, day room and new lift were provided during the 1960s and 1970s and in 1979 new equipment was provided for the physiotherapy department with help from the League of Friends. The operating theatre closed in 1982.

News of the possible closure of all the inpatient beds has sparked a strong response from the local community, some have experienced the wonderful care and support offered to inpatients, many of whom spend time in Crewkerne Hospital to regain their strength before returning to their homes or moving into a care home.

Others will have fond memories of the tremendous compassion and support given to family members whose loved ones received end of life care at the hospital.

And most understand the feeling of being a step closer to home that inpatients experience as soon as they entered the wards. The security of being back within your community, of seeing familiar faces and chatting to friends and neighbours has undoubtedly helped many local people recover and regain their strength enabling them to go home, even if only for a short time.

It seems the plan to close the beds is based on a desire to offer more diagnostic services at the hospital to cut back on travelling to larger hospitals, and there is no doubt, with a growing population and limited bus services, this would be a benefit for many people in our area.

But you have to question if the hospital is the right location for this scheme as the parking is very limited, and Middle Path has inadequate pavements so perhaps a town centre location, in one of the empty buildings, like the old Barclays Bank or Homefayre would be a better location, both for parking and also to bring people back into our town centre. There is a diagnostic centre in the Quedam in Yeovil, so why not use a similar location in Crewkerne ?

This would enable our hospital to keep inpatient beds and continue to provide the increasingly important option to move patients out of the busy wards in our District Hospitals, allowing more acute cases to be dealt with quicker, and reducing pressures due to bed blocking.

Our town will grow significantly over the next 5 years or so, with up to 1,000 new homes planned on various sites, so it seems short sighted to close something which has been available in our town since 1867.......