Campaigners from Sidmouth showed united front with others in fight for NHS
Scores of protestors took to Exeter’s streets to fight against NHS cuts – including plans to axe 54 per cent of East Devon’s community hospital beds.
Sid Valley campaigners dressed in red on Saturday (December 3) and united with others from across the region to rally for their ‘vital services’ in the wake of proposals that, they say, will hit ‘vulnerable patients hardest’.
Community leaders, health workers, service users and residents called for the public to reject plans – under which Sidmouth stands to lose its inpatient unit - and lobby the Government for more money for the ‘chronically underfunded’ NHS.
With their bright attire symbolising a ‘red line’ around health services that ‘cannot take any more cuts’, speakers Di Fuller, of the Sid Valley Patient Participation Group, and district councillor Cathy Gardner, argued strongly that all beds in East Devon should remain.
Campaigner Robert Crick said: “We had a good turnout from all around Devon and in particular East Devon where hospital beds are under threat. We also had a lot of support from people who say that Devon’s health service is under the biggest pressure.
“The message was our health service is not ‘over-spent’ but ‘under-funded’. We agree with our representatives, such as MP Sir Hugo Swire, who said we have to have social care in place before we start to transfer people out of hospital. But, just saying that is not enough - we have to have the means.”
The Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is proposing the series of changes in a bid to improve patient care and also plug a predicted £384million deficit predicted by 2010/21.
Health bosses say a move away from hospitals to a more home-based model of care will allow for a safer, more integrated system, but have promised no beds will be cut before a stringent set of measures has been satisfied.
Speaking on Saturday, Ottery St Mary county councillor Claire Wright said: “The plan is to care for more people in their own homes. But, in East Devon alone, it means the number of staff to achieve that aim has to almost double.
“It means even more pressure on a £5million in debt adult social care budget and yet more of our cherished community hospitals facing the possibility of being mothballed.”
She said the NHS has never been so under threat and added that the protest had ‘the feeling of a rapidly growing movement’ that MPs ought to heed.
The CCG is hosting a drop-in event as part of an ongoing consultation into the proposals on Friday, December 16, from 2.30pm to 4.30pm, at Kennaway House, in Sidmouth, where residents are welcome to ask questions and leave feedback.
View consultation documents and have your say online via: www.newdevonccg.nhs.uk.
Paper copies can be picked up from Sidmouth’s leisure centre, library, hospital, town council offices and pharmacies.
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