COUNCILLORS from both West Devon Borough Council and Okehampton Town Council have condemned the potential closure of all 16 in-patient beds at Okehampton Hospital ahead of a consultation proposing to axe hospital beds launching later this week, writes Tom French and Sally Shipton.

Last Wednesday, Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW Devon CCG) made the decision to launch a consultation on cutting half of the community hospital in-patient beds across its eastern locality.

The CCG is considering five options which would keep beds at Tiverton Hospital and two other hospitals out of Sidmouth, Exmouth, Seaton or Whipton. The fifth option allows the public to present their preferred option of healthcare in the area, including the retention of beds at Okehampton Hospital.

All four other options mean Okehampton Hospital would lose all its in-patient beds.

At its full council meeting on Tuesday (October 4), West Devon Borough Council unanimously passed a motion asking NEW Devon CCG to include the retention of Okehampton Hospital’s 16 beds as an additional option during the consultation exercise.

Leader of the council Cllr Philip Sanders said that the council ‘owes it to itself and the people of West Devon’ to pass the motion. He also said that the CCG's handling of the situation was 'shoddy' and if there was no fifth consultation option, then 'those beds have been wiped off the slate without any discussion or what I can see, rationale'.

Cllr Tony Leech, borough councillor for Okehampton North, said axing Okehampton Hospital's beds would be ‘plainly unfair’ on rural communities in West Devon and ‘the situation that Okehampton finds itself in is not of its own doing’.

Okehampton Town Council held an extraordinary meeting on Monday (October 3) solely to discuss the consultation. Councillors hatched a multi-faceted action plan in an effort to help save the hospital beds; part one of this action plan was put into motion last week when the ‘Save Our Beds —Okehampton Hospital’ Facebook page was created and a large protest of around 200 people was held outside the hospital on Saturday morning.

Okehampton Town Council plans to continue sending letters to NEW Devon CCG objecting to the consultation. Additionally, the council has planned a petition which will be taken to Westminster once it has collected enough signatures.

The council intends to create a campaign leaflet which will be delivered to Okehampton residents. The leaflet will highlight the current issue, the town council’s stance on the matter as well as advise residents on what they can do to assist the campaign to save the hospital beds.

The council intends to use this leaflet as a way to encourage previous patients and their families to share their personal experiences of how the hospital has benefited them. The council hopes to gather enough case histories to strengthen its argument.

Town mayor Cllr Jan Goffey said: ‘We need anecdotal evidence from families and patients; it is crucial we get facts. We need example case histories from local people who can prove we need our hospital beds.

‘As an action point, we need to round up as many examples from patients and their families. We need evidential proof of the impact it will have to local people if we lose our beds. We need to keep the pressure on by reminding everyone of how crucial these hospital beds are. We need to keep bombarding the CCG until we are heard.’

In the NEW Devon area, local health and social care organisations are facing a financial shortfall in 2015/16 of £122-million, which will rise to £384-million in 2020/21 if nothing changes.

The CCG argues that at the same time, many people are in hospital beds who could be cared for at home. They say that with the right care, people can be supported to be in their own home and this is their goal.

In order to deliver this model of care where more people receive proactive support in their own homes, avoiding hospital admissions and getting home from hospital sooner, the CCG needs to increase the number of staff in the community teams.

To achieve this it needs to take the skills, expertise and resources from delivering in-patient care to delivering care in people’s homes.

The model has three key aspects to it:

A comprehensive assessment — this identifies people who are frail or becoming frail and therefore are at risk of being admitted to hospital and puts a care plan in place for them which sets out possible routes for escalating care when needed.

Single point of access — when additional support is needed, a single point of access, connected to a comprehensive care at home service, will help people to remain at home with support, rather than being admitted to hospital.

Rapid response (care at home) — when someone does need to go to hospital they will be helped to leave as soon as it is clinically safe to do so, with additional support provided at home, including health and care workers delivering rehabilitation alongside traditional care.

The governing body of the CCG has agreed a public consultation on the plans will run over 13 weeks, expected to start tomorrow (Friday) and run to January 6, 2017. Full papers and information about the governing body meeting are available on the CCG’s website www.newdevonccg.nhs. uk

What are your thoughts on the proposed bed cuts? Get in touch with us via the email address okehamptonletters@ okehampton-today.co.uk or on Facebook and Twitter.