Month: November 2023
10,000 leaflets on their way for Hospital campaign
Richard and Paul of our leafleting team collecting our leaflets from Marie at Seaton Print and Design this afternoon. Soon they’ll be on their way to every house in Seaton, Colyton, Colyford, Beer, Branscombe, Axmouth and Musbury.
On Saturday at 10 am, we’ll be leafleting and collecting petition signatures in the centre of Seaton (meet outside Tramway), Beer (Mariners) and Colyton (Market Square).
JOIN US!
Seaton top of TV news as Scrutiny backs us
Jack Rowland and I addressed a crowded Devon Health Scrutiny Committee meeting yesterday and were very well received. The Committee asked for a full report at their January meeting, and agreed to request the ICB and NHSPS to pause disposal and to negotiate seriously with us in the meanwhile. We got really great TV coverage, with Seaton leading the regional news on both channels for the first time I can remember!
Leafleting, Petition and Day of Action. 10,000 leaflets will be available from Seaton Print this Monday or Tuesday – please contact us to help deliver in your area, if you have not already done so. We will be leafleting and petitioning on Saturday 18th as planned, meeting outside the Tramway in Seaton and the Mariners in Beer.
Petition. Please sign and share online (https://www.change.org/p/save-seaton-hospital) but we also need to collect physical signatures wherever possible people, including where leafleting. The first sheets are already being returned.
- Please help get the petition forms into local shops, etc.
- Please note that completed forms should now be delivered to the League of Friends shops in Fore Street in envelopes addressed to Kirstine House.
OTHER NEWS. The Steering Committee will meet at the Hospital on Thursday 16th. Sarah Wollaston. Supporters have received emails saying that their letters will be ‘sent to the appropriate department’ – please insist that they are sent to her personally and copied to other members of the Board. Emails to some addresses have bounced back. Please check with friends who were at the meeting to see if they’re getting these emails, and if not ask them to contact me to make sure their correct addresses are on the list.
Hospital campaign latest
After our fantastic public meeting on Friday, 50 supporters crowded into the restaurant of the Old Picture House on Monday to organise the campaign.
TOMORROW (Thursday)
- We are meeting outside County Hall from 9.30-10.15, then going into the meeting of the Health Scrutiny Committee where Jack Rowland and I will present Seaton’s case. Spotlight will be covering us again!
- Please join us if you can – park in the visitors’ parking. We have placards although you can make your own too if you want! Lifts are available from Seaton and Colyton – let me know if you need one.
PETITION
- We agreed to organise a printed petition. We want these completed by the end of the month – I will let you know shortly where completed forms should be left.
- There is also an online petition – https://www.change.org/p/save-seaton-hospital – please sign and share via email/Facebook.
LEAFLETING
- Signatures will be collected together with leafleting of the whole area, starting early next week. If you’d like to help leaflet your area, please email valnightingale67@yahoo.com as soon as you can.
DAY OF ACTION, SATURDAY 18th NOVEMBER
- We’re hoping that this will begin with church bells ringing in mourning for the threatened loss of part of our hospital – details to follow.
- We’ll be meeting outside the Tramway in Seaton at 10 am, and then spreading out to go leafleting and signature-collecting. Also in Beer outside the Mariners – contact John Cllr Heath – and hopefully in Colyton (to be confirmed).
OTHER NEWS
- Richard’s Adjournment Debate in Parliament is on the 13th.
- I’ve been asked to speak to Seaton WI on the 21st.
- We have a campaign website: seatonhospital.wordpress.com (my personal site will also carry news, but revert to its original title to avoid confusion). We’re also on Facebook – search Save Seaton Hospital.
- I am in the process of fixing a date for our first Steering Committee meeting.
Let me know if you’ve any suggestions for things we could be doing.
Getting ready for Thursday’s hospital protest at County Hall
Signs showing the famous ‘hospital brick’ given to the original donors to the Hospital in the 1980s, in preparation for the protest outside the Devon Health Scrutiny Committee at County Hall on Thursday at 9.30. Jack Rowland and Martin Shaw will be presenting the Seaton case to the Committee.
We’ll be joining with Teignmouth campaigners who are also addressing the Committee, to make the case to Save Devon’s Community Hospitals. All welcome and bring home made placards if you can!
Hospital campaign: next steps & organising meeting
I don’t remember what I said to make everyone laugh, but …
1. It was agreed to ask all supporters to write to Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the ICB, to support our case (she is the former MP for Totnes and former Chair of the Health Select Committee).
Email her at d-icb.corporateservices@nhs.net or write to Dr Sarah Wollaston, Chair, NHS Devon Integrated Care Board, County Hall, EXETER EX2 4QD. Mark your letter ‘for the personal attention of Dr Wollaston’ & also ‘please circulate to all members of the Board’.
2. There will be a protest outside Health Scrutiny at County Hall on Thursday 9 November, 9.30-10.30. We will be joining with Teignmouth whose hospital is also being discussed at Scrutiny. The meeting starts at 10.30 and we will then all go inside, where Jack Rowland and I will be presenting the Seaton case at the beginning of the meeting (you don’t necessarily have to stay for their discussion which may be quite a bit later). WE NEED TO ORGANISE CARS & PLACARDS (HOME-MADE WILL BE FINE).
3. We are planning a day of action on Saturday 18 November. The current proposal is to leaflet and collect signatures for a petition in the centre of Seaton (outside Tesco and/or Aldi?), Colyton, Beer etc., but WE NEED YOUR IDEAS.
There will be an ORGANISING MEETING for these actions from 4.15-5.45 on Monday 6 November in the Old Picture House, Harbour Rd, Seaton.
Please come along if you would like to help – LET ME KNOW by email (saveseatonhospital@gmail.com) so that we have an idea of numbers. Also let me know if you’d like to help on either 9th or 18th but can’t make it on Monday.
Huge meeting sets up Seaton Hospital Steering Committee to represent local community
There were queues across the car park, people standing everywhere, some looking in through the windows, others unfortunately having to turn away. It was twice the size of the meeting in the same hall in March 2017 after they stole the hospital’s beds, and probably even bigger than one in Seaton Town Hall in late 2016 when bed cuts were first proposed.
We had fantastic contributions from all our speakers, especially Dr Mark Welland of the League of Friends (above) and Richard Foord MP, and also from around 20 people from the floor. There was complete unity on the need to save the hospital wing for use by the League, Re:store and other local groups promoting health and wellbeing (for example, for a palliative care service), and for this to be done by renting or even buying the wing – as long as this is at minimal cost, since the local community paid in full for building the wing in the first place.
We unanimously established a Seaton Hospital Steering Committee to fully represent the local community in all matters relating to the future of the hospital. As organiser of the meeting and de facto acting secretary for the committee, I will write to the ICB and NHS Property Services, who declined to attend, to inform them of its outcome.
Further campaigning details will follow in another post. Email saveseatonhospital@gmail.com to receive campaign mailings, or follow this blog where they will also be posted.
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