DURING the weeks leading up to Christmas health bosses of the NHS’ Northern, Eastern and Western Devon clinical commissioning group (NEW Devon CCG) hosted public events across Devon to give people in a wider area the chance to find out about proposals, which they hope will change and improve the way care for the elderly is provided in the Eastern part of the CCG area, writes Christine Williams.

On Thursday morning, December 22, it was the turn of residents in the Holsworthy area to come to the Memorial Hall and have their say.

What was intended to be a ‘roadshow’ morphed into a public meeting led by James Wright, head of commissioning northern locality board, and Mick Pearson, head of communication NEW Devon governing body, surrounded by fewer than 35 people who attended.

The Memorial Hall had previously been ‘packed to the rafters’ at NHS consultation meetings in 2014, but the low attendance this time was put down to the choice of time and date, 9.30am just three days before Christmas, and the lack of advertisement.

Mr Wright explained that their new model, set out in a document entitled ‘Your Future Care’, aimed to join up care more effectively with various providers of services working together to promote the health and well-being of the elderly and frail — preventing unnecessary hospital admissions and supporting a faster return home when hospital was needed.

With North, East and West Devon health services facing a possible shortfall of £442-million by 2020, if nothing changes in the way services are delivered, they will need to save money, and treating patients in their own home would cost much less than treating them in hospital.

Local people present were skeptical, especially those who had attended the CCG consultation meetings in the Memorial Hall in 2014 and were familiar with these arguments, recognising them as a reinvention of the ‘Care Closer to Home’ policy, as Black Torrington GP Dr Alan Howlett argued: “It’s a wonderful idea. On balance, if it is properly resourced with the right level of support and staff, people prefer care at home, but it isn’t working as it is not being properly funded”.

Retaining the beds at Holsworthy Hospital was not on the agenda for this meeting, but for many it was the elephant in the room. Firstly, there were the possible closures of essential services at North Devon District Hospital such as A&E, the baby care unit, maternity and stroke units, which mean people having to travel to Plymouth or Exeter.

Devon County Councillor Barry Parsons asked: “Where in Devon is there a market town of Holsworthy’s prominence that is further away from an A&E hospital?”

He added that Holsworthy people were frightened to ‘lose beds and have to travel long distances to get to hospital’.

Many raised the difficulties of effectively caring for people in their own homes in such a rural area with long distances to be travelled along difficult roads and mobile phone black spots and asked what funding would be available. Resources are being sent to some deprived areas such as Ilfracombe but not into Torridge, which was said to be the ‘most deprived area in Devon by a long way’. One speaker said the Government’s proposal to allow an increase in council tax to pay for the social care crisis would not raise sufficient funds in Torridge and, with people already demonstrating, could be the Government’s ‘poll tax moment’.

Cllr Parsons told the representatives of the CCG there was ‘a lack of trust and their focus needed to shift’, he added: “You need to get the trust of the people because at the moment you don’t have it. Health and Social provision must be built around the needs of the people. Holsworthy is different so please look after the needs of people in this area”.

Summing up at the end of the meeting Mick Pearson said they had come to get as broad a view as possible. They were taking away the message that people in Holsworthy were passionate and caring about local health provision, that there was strong support for community hospital beds but that resources were needed.

Findings from the consultation process will be fed into the Devon Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), which will provide detailed proposals for how services across Devon will develop between now and 2020/21.