BOSSES at the Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust are confident they will recruit the staff necessary to set up its planned intermediate care team.

The trust is working to a tight timescale as it plans to have the team of professionals in place by October when it plans to close 20 beds at Devizes Hospital and nine beds at Malmesbury Hospital.

The trust board decided at its meeting last Thursday that if the intermediate care team did not have enough staff, then not all the hospital beds would be closed.

The trust intends to set up a team of professionals comprising district nurses, nursing assistants, physiotherapists and occupational therapists to provide a short period of rehabilitation intermediate care to patients in their own homes or while they are in a care home. The team will operate 24-hours a day.

Phil Day, the director of community services at the trust, said: "If we are not able to provide those alternatives by October we would need to staff and run as many beds as we need."

The trust is planning to spend £1.3million on setting up the intermediate care team and providing intermediate care.

Under the current system a person who lives alone and suffers a fall in the night resulting, for example, in a sprained ankle would be admitted to hospital.

According to the trust, that is unnecessary.

The new team would include nursing assistants who would act as night sitters who would wait with the patient until morning for a proper assessment.

Several residents who raised questions at the trust meeting, held at Devizes Town Hall, expressed scepticism that the trust would be able to recruit the staff needed for the intermediate care teams.

Mr Day said: "We could create rotational posts so people work for, say, six months in a hospital followed by a stint in the community.

"We have innovative schemes and training and we have nationally renowned schemes in some areas."

After the meeting, Mr Day said discussions would start with trust staff to find out if any would like to work in the intermediate care team.

By July, Mr Day said the trust would have a clear idea of how many people they would need to recruit.

He said: "We will need a number of registered nurses, plus nursing assistants or auxiliaries and we don't anticipate a problem in recruiting into those positions. We have excellent auxiliaries already working for us.

"Where it may be difficult is recruiting physiotherapists and occupational therapists as there is a problem in recruiting therapists nationally." The trust will review the recruitment situation at a board meeting in September.