Department of Health and Social Care

Rachel Gilmour Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

There are very legitimate concerns about rumoured plans to merge integrated care boards across the country. When ICBs merge, the promise of unified oversight gives way to a bureaucratic structure that prioritises large-scale efficiency over the nuanced understanding of local communities. Each locality and its environs has its unique challenges, such as variable demographics, socioeconomic disparities and distinctive health issues that demand targeted solutions. A merged ICB risks offering one-size-fits-all strategies that overlook the finer details of local care. The resultant dilution in responsiveness not only alienates patients, but stifles innovative local approaches that have proved successful in addressing community-specific challenges. While attempts at driving efficiency are certainly laudable, we risk sacrificing the local approach for local needs.

In my constituency of Tiverton and Minehead, community hospitals in Williton, Minehead, Tiverton and Dene Barton in Cotford St Luke are anchor institutions providing essential care for my constituents. Communities in rural areas simply cannot afford to lose them. These facilities are often the only nearby source of medical attention, and that is critical when timely treatment can mean the difference between life and death.

Moreover, community hospitals offer the family and friends of patients the opportunity to visit and check on them without having to travel great distances to do so. As we know, this familiar contact is so often a crucial part of a patient’s journey to recovery. It is certainly true in Tiverton and Minehead that community hospitals help to reduce the health disparities found in rural settings compared with urban centres. Without them, residents in more remote areas would simply not have access to the same level of healthcare as those in more built-up areas. That is why, where possible, we must resist administrative reforms that ignore local distinctiveness, and at the same time invest robustly in the community pharmacy network and community hospitals.