Your front page coverage in last week’s Marlborough Gazette on cutting the number of beds from 24 to 12 at Savernake Hospital caused me to pen the following.

Claire Perry MP shows excellent judgement in expressing suspicion over statements by NHS Wiltshire. Its attempt to link the low morale of Savernake’s nursing staff to the 2009 judicial review is devious and underhand.

Savernake was an efficient hospital that had served the people of Wiltshire since 1872, when it had 25 beds. During recent years it has been progressively dismembered by the trust. The Trust sold off – for a reported £7m – about a third of the site to a private developer, who built around 38 houses.

The trust has closed the day hospital and the minor injuries unit. The crowding that arose from the sale of land resulted in parking restrictions for staff and parking charges for the public – medical staff were bussed from and to Marlborough instead of being able to park at the hospital.

The trust has progressively hollowed out a perfectly sound hospital until all that remains is a shell. This suggests a hidden agenda whereby Savernake is run down step by step until it is unviable and in such a state that allows them to ‘justify’ its demise, at which time it could be closed as an NHS operation and sold.

The use of the future tense by NHS Wiltshire director of nursing Ms Kennedy gives the game away.

“We will be providing motivational training and lots of support to ensure they are re-energised and able to carry out their work with renewed enthusiasm, so that they can provide the best possible care for their patients.”

Over the past few years, nurses have been forced to quit by offering them jobs in distant towns, and encouraging them to transfer out of nursing to jobs in community care. The recent early retirement of several senior long-serving Savernake nurses has been accepted by NHS Wiltshire without any attempt to dissuade them.

It would be interesting to know just where Ms Kennedy’s “five recruiting campaigns in the last month” were promoted, what job description was used and whether the ‘campaign’ referred to the future of Savernake. It sounds to me like more weasel words.

D G Savage, Upper Upham, Marlborough.