The future use of a former Cornish hospital is up for debate and only one can be agreed on by the community: to reopen its beds.

The news comes as the results of community hospital review into Edward Hain in St Ives are made public for the first time.

However, those supporting the reopening of 12 inpatient beds are facing disappointment today as it has also been revealed that after full evaluation it was decided such a project would not be viable.

Dr Neil Walden, Edward Hain project group clinical lead, said: “In January this year our community partners, including local people, considered a long list of options in relation to the long-term future use of Edward Hain community hospital in St Ives, based on the needs of the people in Penwith, but only one was agreed by the stakeholder group for full evaluation – to re-provide the 12 inpatient beds and to continue to provide community clinics in a fire safety compliant and refurbished Edward Hain hospital.

“An evaluation process and scoring criteria were developed with community stakeholders. A panel - made up of representatives of the local community alongside experts working across health and care - concluded the reopening of Edward Hain inpatient beds was unviable because the minimum scores for safety, financial affordability and financial sustainability were not met.

"The option also did not meet adequate levels of quality, access, workforce, deliverability, environment, finance and wider system/community impact criteria, scoring a total of 13 out of 84.”

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NHS Kernow has been working with the local community since January 2019, to identify and review options in relation to the long-term future of the community hospital based on the needs of the local population.

The hospital’s 12 inpatient beds were temporarily closed in February 2016 due to fire safety concerns, with some outpatient podiatry and community clinics still operating from the site pre-Covid-19.

Dr Walden added: “We have worked extremely hard to ensure this process has been inclusive, robust, detailed and transparent and I would like to thank the commitment of everyone involved in what has been an incredible amount of work to arrive at this point.”

No formal decision on the future of Edward Hain community hospital has been made.

The October NHS Kernow’s Governing Body will now consider the work that has taken place to review the future use of Edward Hain community hospital and the outcome of the evaluation, and determine the next steps.

They will also take into account the very recent changes to how services are delivered, made in response to Covid-19, which have seen the majority of Edward Hain community hospital’s remaining outpatient clinics delivered remotely.

Last week the hospital was at the the centre of a fire, with crews and officers from six fire stations in the surrounding area called to tackle it.