Mental Health: The North Devon and Torridge Link Centres.
Further to their failed attempts to get the Link Centres in North Devon and Torridge closed down, Devon County Council produced a further public consultation which ran from 6 November to 6 December, barely enough time for campaigners to respond and little chance of getting the response of those who actually use the service. However, Cllr. Terry Elliott, Cllr James Craigie, and SOHS have all sent responses. We publish ours – which takes the form of three separate documents, and Terry Elliott’s which is one long letter, here.
Trans Healthcare in Plymouth
On the 10th November 2022 The Solidarity Federation published a report on cuts to Trans Healthcare in Plymouth. Among other things, GPs are no longer allowed to give blood tests or offer hormone replacement prescriptions to new patients
The link contains a call to action, asking people to write to the ICB (Integrated Care Board) about it to show support (email: d-ccg.corporateservices@nhs.net). So please share the article and write in to them to get as wide support as possible.
Autism and ADHT Services
Campaigners have been active in Plymouth since 2018 trying to get a reversal of the decision to stop ALL assessements for adult ADHT and Autism, but in October 2021 the NHS put an extra £500,000 into the system and people at last were offered the long awaited assessments. You can read this great report published a year later, on this hard fought but ultimately successful campaign and advice on how to achieve your ends:
Help us to maintain Mental Health Support in Northern Devon
Four mental health support centres, known as the LINK CENTRES run under the auspices of Devon County Council, were established in 1992 to offer support to members of the public with mental health problems. In August-September 2021 DCC announced that they were considering a reconfiguration of the mental health support services they were offering, proposing a reduction in use of or even complete removal of the physical building element of the service, to be replaced with professionals visiting service-users in their home towns or villages for sessions ‘closer to home’. DCC must be convinced of the necessity of maintaining the system as it was.
Timeline
Save Our Health Services Devon (SOHS Devon) was formed in April 2016 to campaign against the threatened closure of the acute services at the North Devon District Hospital, following the leaked publication of a document entitled The Case For Change. SOHS is now a cross-Devon campaign that has stood up against the closure of seven community hospitals, and dozens of hospital beds, wards, and services. We are the Red Line around our NHS!
Campaign against ICS in Devon
In 2021 the Conservative Government put forward out a White Paper – now a parliamentary Bill – on the future of health and social care. SOHS is working with other national campaigns to overturn the main proposals of this Bill. We reject the break-up of our National Health Services into 42 separate ‘Integrated Care Systems’ (ICSs) which will be used to further ration access to care and to embed corporate interests at the heart of care commissioning..
Hands Off Teignmouth Hospital
SOHS has been part of a heroic local campaign to save Teignmouth Hospital, the first purpose-built NHS hospital in the UK. After many set-backs, the hospital has been saved – for the time being – but without its in-patient beds, and with many clinics moving or being closed. Teignmouth is just the latest community hospital in Devon to be threatened with closure and to be robustly defended by SOHS.
Keep Summer Safe
In the run-up to Devon’s busiest ever tourist season (summer 2021), Devon CCG has closed four Minor Injury Units, all serving towns with many older residents and summer visitors. People needing urgent treatment must drive for an hour or more – if they can access transport. SOHS has joined with local mayors, councillors and Leagues of Friends to demand the full reopening of our MIUs. Keep Devon Safe this summer.
Fair Pay for Nursing
SOHS is working with health unions and professional bodies to support the RCN’s Fair Pay for Nursing campaign. Our aim is to secure a fully-funded 12.5% one-off pay increase for all nursing staff, in all pay bands, to recognise the extraordinary risks and sacrifices that nurses have made during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the value of their professional skills to us as a community.
