Futures Forum: The future of Sidmouth's hospital >>> campaigns, petitions, meetings
Futures Forum: The NHS and 'sloganising' in Devon >>> and meanwhile, the 'Success Regime' claims that hospital beds are "unused" and care at home is "more efficient"...
The District Council has come out in no uncertain terms to voice its concern:
EDDC registers ‘extreme’ concern at Devon’s hospital bed cuts
13:30 31 October 2016
Proposed cuts to hospital beds will hit elderly and frail residents the hardest - and should be ‘killed stone dead’.
The comments came AS East Devon District Council (EDDC) registered its ‘extreme concern’ at NHS NEW Devon Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) plans, which members said lacked rural-proofing.
They also questioned the validity of a consultation – that could see Sidmouth lose all 24 of its inpatients beds – claiming the previous round of cuts had public input, but were, in fact, a ‘done deal’.
Councillor Mike Allen said: “The CCG uses inaccurate logic and biased consultation questions, therefore it’s not a real consultation – it’s an act of manipulation. There’s no rural-proofing and yet the majority of older people are in rural areas. The most accessible towns are excluded. Dementia and mental health provision is totally ignored. The effect on the viability of other services is completely ignored. It’s an absolute debacle. Let’s kill this idea stone dead.”
Cllr Douglas Hull, who has cared for family members for 25 years, said: “We’ve got to make sure people are well looked after and not just turfed out. We’ve got to have a halfway house between the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the community.”
He called for a taskforce to be formed to scrutinise the CCG’s proposals – and said it should be able to make decisions without having to wait weeks at a time to defer to full council.
Members were considering a motion to oppose the cuts and to ask Devon MPs Sir Hugo Swire and Neil Parish to continue to fight them.
The cuts were put forward by the Success Regime, a body tasked with formulating a new, home-based model of care in a bid to plug the CCG’s expected £384million deficit by 2020/21.
Cllr Eileen Wragg said: “My concern is the people who will suffer are the patients who will be sent home with scant and sometimes no care provision. I believe we were ill chosen as a pilot scheme and I support this motion. Even more, I would support the abolition of the Success Regime - and those who got us into this awful mess being held to account.”
Cllr Andrew Moulding said an independent report on closing inpatient beds in Ottery St Mary and Sidmouth’s minor injuries unit was presented to NHS bosses in 2015 – and then disregarded. “They said they received it, and that was it,” he added. “They never considered it, because it was a done deal. It was not a consultation. They were putting forward proposals, they had to go through the motions and that was the way it was.”
Cllr Moulding said councillors were never given official figures, but were told inpatient beds made up less than five per cent of the budget. He urged EDDC’s health scrutiny committee to get hold of the CCG’s audited accounts and the figures it is using to justify the bed cuts.
Members voted almost unanimously in support of the motion.
EDDC registers ‘extreme’ concern at Devon’s hospital bed cuts - Home - Sidmouth Herald
The District Council's press release carries more:
Council urges local East Devon MPs to continue to speak out against hospital bed closures
When this content has been created
27 October 2016Motion to register extreme concern over potential loss of 71 community beds in East Devon voted through by councillors
The overwhelming majority of East Devon councillors were of one mind at yesterday’s full council meeting (on 26 October 2016), at Knowle, Sidmouth, when they voted in favour of a motion, proposed by Councillor Peter Burrows (a Seaton ward member), which asked that:
“This council register its extreme concern at the impending loss of 71 Community beds in this part of Devon. It is a well-known fact, particularly in coastal and rural Devon, that there is an above average population of elderly people. Older people take longer to recuperate from illness, hospital admission and operations. Community services are already overstretched and there is an acute lack of appropriate carers to care for people in their own homes. Our District General Hospitals increasingly find it difficult to keep up with demand due to the fact that they cannot discharge people when they are ready because of the lack of community services. All the Government advice has been to encourage the care of people close to their homes.
“We thank Devon MPs, including Sir Hugo Swire and Neil Parish, who secured a debate at Westminster on 18 October, to air their concerns about proposed changes to community bed provision in East Devon, and that this council write to them urging them to continue speaking on behalf of all residents in East Devon, so that an ill thought out decision which has come about only for financial reasons, is urgently re-considered by the Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
The CCG will be undertaking public consultation over community bed closures in Devon from 31 October 2016 until 6 January 2017.
East Devon District Council’s Chief Executive Mark Williams will now write on behalf of the council to Sir Hugo Swire MP and Neil Parish MP, to ask them to continue to lobby the CCG by requesting that it rethinks its decision to remove a number of inpatient beds in Seaton, Exmouth and Sidmouth and to close Honiton Hospital's community beds completely.
In summing up his motion, Councillor Peter Burrows said:
“I take the issue of the loss of community hospital beds very seriously and feel strongly about the impact it will have on the people of East Devon.
“In particular, I feel we need to raise awareness of this potentially devastating predicament among the younger generation, as they will be the ones looking after their parents if the beds are lost. This is why I want to encourage as much engagement as possible with young people.
“I would like to thank my fellow councillors very much for supporting this motion and I look forward to our public meeting in Seaton on 4 November where residents can discuss this issue further with our local MP.”
The motion was seconded by Councillor Douglas Hull (ward member for Axminster Town) and supported by Councillors Eileen Wragg (Exmouth Town), Pat Graham(Exmouth Town), Brenda Taylor (Exmouth Withycombe Raleigh) and Steve Gazzard(Exmouth Withycombe Raleigh).
52 councillors were present at the meeting – 51 voted in favour of the motion and there was one abstention .
27 October 2016 - Council urges local East Devon MPs to continue to speak out against hospital bed closures - East Devon
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