A PUBLIC consultation on proposed community hospital bed closures across Devon will now include an option where people can ask for the 16 in-patient beds at Okehampton Hospital to be saved.

The Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW Devon CCG) is launching a consultation on Friday on its proposal to cut half of the community hospital in-patient beds across its eastern locality.

In the draft consultation paper, the CCG was considering four options which would keep beds at Tiverton Hospital and two other hospitals out of Sidmouth, Exmouth, Seaton or Whipton. All four options mean Okehampton Hospital would lose all its in-patient beds.

Ahead of the final paper’s publication on Friday and following severe pressure from politicians and the public alike, the CCG is now to include a fifth option — where the public can present their preferred option of healthcare in the area, including the retention of beds at Okehampton Hospital.

Cllr Mike Davies, West Devon borough councillor for Okehampton North, has been among the most vocal critics of the plans to axe Okehampton’s beds. He has gone so far as to set up a ’Save Our Beds — Okehampton Hospital’ Facebook page protesting the potential bed losses.

He said: ’This is fantastic news. We have been fighting for Okehampton to have its say. With the CCG’s turnaround there is now an opportunity to do that.’

Cllr Kevin Ball, county councillor for Okehampton Rural, said: ’I’m delighted that the CCG has added a fifth option that enables the community to have their say on local provisions, which in our case is the potential closure of the 16 in-patient beds.

’We hope the community will engage in the consultation process when it starts on Friday to explain to the CCG why this provision is important to the community, not just in Okehampton and the hamlets but wider in West Devon.’

Less than 24 hours before the announcement, 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’.

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 inpatient 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 will has agreed upon a public consultation on the plans will run over 13 weeks, expected to start on October 7 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