SUPPORTERS of Bradford on Avon Hospital are triumphant after a letter campaign has secured the future of outpatient services.

Members of the Bradford on Avon Hospital League of Friends had been told by representatives of West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust there were plans in the pipeline to cut services and they wrote to the Trust in protest.

John Cottle, chairman of the League of Friends, said: "We were told at a stakeholders meeting in November of proposals to remove all outpatient facilities, apart from paediatrics, from Bradford.

"The League circulated all members, town council, and other interested parties asking for a letter of protest against these proposals to be sent to the PCT.

"I am pleased to say that, although not in writing, I have been advised that the proposals have been dropped.

"While realising that changes have to be made these need to be for the benefit of the people of Bradford on Avon, and that our hospital would not only continue but be improved and brought into the 21st century."

Town councillors in Bradford on Avon have now backed a move to commission a consultant to research the best way forward for health services in Bradford.

Bradford mayor Vicky Landell Mills said: "We have an increasingly elderly population and we need a service that provides for our town but also fits into the west Wiltshire area as a whole."