DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL UNANIMOUS VOTE TO ‘HALT’ STP
At its meeting on 8 December Devon County Council (DCC) voted unanimously in favour of two motions put by Councillor Brian Greenslade and Councillor Frank Biederman which, together, expressed the deep concern of the council about the impact of proposed cuts to Devon’s Health Services as indicated in the Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) for Devon; a claim for fairer funding of these services and the need for local MPs to lobby government to this end.
Cllr. Greenslade points out that Devon County Council is the largest local authority in the South West and, alongside Cllr. Biederman insisted that they will “speak up for the people of Devon who are terrified by the implications of this flawed process…”
The Save Our Hospital Services Devon (SOHS Devon) campaign has been instrumental in bringing this issue to the Council Chamber via lobbying at town and district level, the Health and Well-Being Scrutiny Committee, public meetings and the Red Line and Devon Sees Red demonstrations in Barnstaple and Exeter.
In his address to the DCC on behalf of SOHS Devon Phillip Wearne said that the ‘Success Regime’ and the STP process headed by the same person in Angela Pedder, and operating with the same staff should be considered as one and the same. The ‘Success Regime’/NEW Devon Health Trust is “riddled with conflicts of interest and inherently unfair, especially for North Devon. In sum what is going on is an inside job.” He then explained where these conflicts of interest exist and added “The SOHS Devon campaign is committed to preventing any cuts in our hospital services.”
Liz Wood from the SOHS Devon campaign also addressed the council and identified the threat to acute services at North Devon District Hospital (NDDH), saying “In June Ruth Carnall came to Barnstaple armed with her contradictory and contestable Case for Change document – the product of her own independent healthcare consultancy. . . she and her ‘Success Regime/STP colleagues have stressed one thing: there are no red lines around any hospital services in Barnstaple. . . nothing is ruled out, they warn in concert. That ‘nothing’ includes all our acute services – consultant led maternity, paediatrics, neonatology and stroke.”
The full texts of both the above speeches are available on request.
On 5 December Oxford City Council also rejected this process, noting that the former Head of NHS England’s Commissioning Policy Unit, Julia Simon, has denounced the STP process as ‘shameful’, ‘mad’, ‘ridiculous’ and the plans as ‘full of lies’.
East Devon Watch 