July 2024
In August 2021 Devon County Council announced a public consultation on the future of mental health support in Northern Devon. The Link Centres, four buildings, with qualified experienced staff, across the locality, were possibly no longer necessary as alternative support could be a better option – not a money saving measure. When the results of the consultation were in it was clear that service users were more than unhappy with the proposal. Long story short – DCC actually were on a cost-cutting mission. The staff and maintenance of the buildings were too expensive. Government was doing all it could to slaughter local authorities by a thousand cuts – to such an extent that an incredible 44 MPs, most of them Conservatives, wrote an open letter to government begging for more realistic financial support for the LAs which covered their constituencies. Meanwhile the Devon Mental Health Alliance (DMHA), an amalgam of charitable and voluntary services appeared in the health landscape in April 2022. They could it seemed, according to DCC, fill the gaping hole left by their own withdrawal from the mental health equation.
As part of their arithmetic DCC calculated that only those people assessed professionally as ‘eligible under the 2014 Care Act’ were eligible for any expenditure on their care by DCC, the rest could go hang.
The Link Centres were established in 1992, originally as a means of providing a degree of social care to mentally unwell people who were beyond the help of primary care yet not so unwell as to warrant hospital admission. Not surprisingly, the offer slowly grew into something which has really been a great boon to those suffering mental distress in Northern Devon, often on a chronic scale. The staff, so professionally and emotionally well equipped, have become the service users most trusted friends and allies. Now, with no money to pay salaries, DCC are telling us that the service offered was never meant to be a ‘health’ service, only a ‘social care’ service. At the same time they are telling us that anyone who wants to use the new alternative service, provided by DMHA, must qualify as eligible. But this emerges as a major crunch point.
To qualify as eligible, people have to fill in an online form. Many of those hitherto using the Link Centres either do not have access to the internet, or, because they are so unwell, cannot cope with what for them has become a complex technological challenge. GPs are not in a position to help with this online referral process. Up till now staff at the LCs have helped self-referred individuals but this will no longer be possible. DMHA will be allowed to use the buildings, but without the former staff and maintenance facilities. DCC has announced a full closure date for their services at the three remaining centres as 26 July. The official guidelines to the service users is that DMHA will step in to advise and guide them to alternative support
But DMHA have told us they have only 6 support workers to run all the services they might offer in Northern Devon. That is hardly going to stretch to the drop-in sessions intimated by DCC as part of DMHA’s offer, to the three remaining LCs in Barnstaple, Bideford and Ilfracombe (a fourth, in Holsworthy, has already been dealt a death-blow, although DCC would never term it as such, rather, claiming the new arrangement a success). Nor is it likely to stretch to any other service equalling the calibre of that given by the staff who have now been given their marching orders. Added to this, financial support from the previous government to DMHA is only guaranteed till Spring 2025.
So anyone feeling desperate will not only be finding it difficult to access support from DMHA, they will also find it almost impossible to formally become eligible for help. SOHS are hoping that the new government will be taking a different attitude to local finance and healthcare than the previous one.
Eligibility should not be a marker of entitlement. Far better that what was originally established as a social care service but developing over decades into something more valuable for those in mental distress – often chronic – is open to all, not just the ‘eligible’ under the notorious Care Act 2014.
The LC service users, supported by heroic local councillors Terry Elliott and James Craigie, as well as SOHS, have fought a long, painful battle against the closures, leading to a court hearing in Cardiff on 13 June. The outcome of this is not decisive, the battle may yet be extended. Without some major change in central government policy on mental health support we may be looking to crowd-fund to help with further legal costs. Anything you can do to help will be much appreciated. Watch this space.
August 2024
We now have a new government and hopefully a new attitude to our mental health services. We are hoping to meet up with the new MP in North Devon, although Torridge still has Geoffrey Cox in office.
Meanwhile, here’s a summary of the aspirations, we are yet to find out if anything will come of them
https://www.brownejacobson.com/insights/labour-s-mental-health-care-plans-what-to-expect-under-the-new-government