Neil Parish MP snubs Seaton Mayor’s request for urgent meeting with Health Secretary
Councillor Jack Rowland, Mayor of Seaton, has posted on Facebook:
As many of you know I wanted to arrange a face to face meeting with Neil Parish and Jeremy Hunt regarding the CCG decision to close the hospital beds at Seaton Hospital.
I’ve now received a reply from Neil Parish and the email I sent to him and the reply is reproduced below.
Dear Jack,
Thank you for your email on beds at Honiton and Seaton.
I am deeply saddened by the decisions to close beds at Honiton and Seaton Hospitals. I wanted beds to be retained at Seaton and Honiton, as part of a wider upgrade to health services in Devon. This closure is not the outcome I wanted. I would like to pay tribute to all the staff who have worked so hard to maintain fantastic inpatient beds at the hospitals over the past years.
We now have to make the best of the current situation. The CCG have stated they believe there is sufficient at-home care to replace the current beds. Hospital staff will now be redeployed into community care. Every patient who previously required care in the hospitals must now have the same level of care delivered to them at home or in a residential care home. This promise must be kept and I will be monitoring the situation carefully.
Regarding the future of Honiton and Seaton Hospitals, I want the buildings to continue to host vital health and social care services. Particularly, I want the sites to be used as health and social care hubs, with a positive future for each of the locations. I believe the hospitals still have an important role to play in community healthcare services. Any suggestions you could provide in this area, which would help maintain viable services at Seaton, would be appreciated.
I know this might be a disappointing response, but I hope we can continue to maintain excellent care in our community.
Thank you again for your email.
Yours sincerely,
Neil
Neil Parish MP
Member of Parliament for Tiverton and Honiton
House of Commons | London | SW1A 0AA
Telephone: 020 7219 7172 | Email: neil.parish.mp@parliament.uk
www.neilparish.co.uk
From: cllr.jack.rowland@btinternet.com [mailto:cllr.jack.rowland@btinternet.com]
Sent: 16 August 2017 12:26
To: PARISH, Neil <neil.parish.mp@parliament.uk>
Cc: townclerk@seaton.gov.uk; Martin Shaw <cllrmartinshaw@gmail.com>; Marcus Hartnell <cllrmarcushartnell@seatondevon.com>
Subject: Seaton Hospital – bed closures
Dear Mr Parish,
I’m writing to you in my capacity as the Chair of Seaton Town Council.
As you are no doubt aware the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee of Devon County Council voted by 7 votes to 6 on 25 July not to refer the CCG decision to the Health Secretary for a review. An investigation has been called for regarding how the Scrutiny Committee Chair managed that meeting.
In the meantime the RDE Trust are accelerating the bed closure timetable from the original timetable and the beds in Seaton Hospital are now being phased out starting on 21 August and those in Honiton the following week.
This is despite no adequate answers being given to date regarding the concerns about the “Your Future Care” changes now being implemented. At the East Devon District Council Annual meeting all the Councillors present voted in favour of requiring more information on this subject and the EDDC Scrutiny Committee met in June to question representatives of the CCG and were not satisfied with the responses and maintained their opposition to Community Hospital bed closures.
At the Seaton Town Council meeting on 7 August I tabled a motion to demonstrate concern at the decision reached by the DCC Scrutiny Committee and to seek an urgent meeting with yourself and Jeremy Hunt to be attended by myself, Marcus Hartnell (Town and EDDC District Councillor) and Martin Shaw (Town and DCC Councillor). All the Town Councillors present voted in favour of my motion.
In view of your stated opposition to the bed closures in Seaton and Honiton I hope you can facilitate the meeting I am requesting in view of the overwhelming opposition from the elected Councillors in East Devon.
I look forward to hearing from you in the near future regarding potential dates, times and venue – we would be willing to travel to London if necessary.
Regards
Jack Rowland
Seaton Town Council Chair / Mayor
Vigil at Seaton Hospital on Monday 21st at 12, as bed closures are implemented
On the initiative of Cllr Martin Pigott, Vice-Chairman of Seaton Town Council, there will be a vigil outside the hospital on Monday (21st) from 12 to 1 to protest at the closure of the inpatient beds in Seaton Hospital which will take place next week.
We will express our deep concern about the very future of Seaton and the other community hospitals, handed by the Government to NHS Property Services which will charge the RD&E a ‘market rent’ for the buildings despite the huge input of funds by the local communities.
There will also be a vigil at Honiton Hospital on Monday 28th August at 11 am. Please share!
The story of how the local community built Seaton Hospital is now online
A new page on this site will collect together key information about the Hospital and the campaign to save it. The page has been launched by making available the story of the building of the Hospital thirty years ago, told in Mary Wood’s booklet, That’s What Friends Are For. You can now read the full story by going to the Seaton Hospital page.
RD&E briefing on local services doesn’t even mention Seaton or Honiton Hospitals
Following the announcement that beds in Seaton and Okehampton hospitals will close next week, and those in Honiton the week after, the Royal Devon and Exeter Trust has circulated this document: YFC implementation Locality Briefing FINAL UPDATED.
For the Seaton, Axminster and Sidmouth area, listing ‘Services in the locality’, only Sidmouth Community Hospital is mentioned as such, with the ‘Dementia Day Care Unit – Axminster’, and Hospiscare at Home (but no mention of the fact that this is based at Seaton Hospital). Likewise, for the Honiton and Ottery St Mary area, there is no mention of Honiton Hospital.
Clearly there is much work to be done in getting the RD&E to, first, recognise the existing out-patient services in the hospitals, and, second, develop them as centres for further services for which people currently have to travel to Wonford.
Seaton beds to close next week – shame on East Devon Conservative leaders who have helped this to happen
Adel Jones of the Royal Devon and Exeter trust, who run our community hospitals, has told the members of Devon's Health Scrutiny Committee that Seaton and Okehampton will lose their beds next week, and Honiton the week after. Shame on Sara Randall Johnson, Chair of the Scrutiny Committee, Paul Diviani, leader of EDDC, and other Conservative councillors who have helped this to happen.
Seaton’s exciting Seafront Enhancement Scheme finally gets planning permission
EDDC’s Development Management Committee today finally approved the plans for Seafront Enhancement which have been developed by consultants Architectural Thread, working for Seaton Town Council, after three rounds of public consultation. Now we only need to get them built! If EDDC gets its act together, the first phase centred on the Moridunum could begin in conjunction with the re-development of Fosseway Court, this autumn, leaving the Town Council to look for funding for the second phase including Fisherman’s Gap.
Bid for County support for X52 bus service fails
East Devon Tories were central to ditching Seaton and Honiton hospital beds
Why did Devon’s Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee block the proposal to refer the closure of our beds to the Secretary of State? The idea that the Chair, Councillor Sara Randall Johnson (left), was settling an old score with Claire Wright makes a nice story but overlooks the concerted Conservative position. The collusion between Randall Johnson and Rufus Gilbert – who rushed to propose a ‘no referral’ motion before Claire could move her motion to refer -was obvious to all, as was her keenness to persuade her colleagues not to have a recorded vote.
Equally striking, however, is that only one out of 12 Tories on the Committee – Honiton’s Phil Twiss – voted against Gilbert’s motion. The other 7 Tories who voted were all for allowing the beds to be closed; 2 who had reservations abstained; 2 more were (diplomatically?) absent. Whipping is not allowed on Scrutiny committees, but this gives a strong impression of a Tory consensus. Members who were uncertain of their support were unwilling to defy it beyond abstention. Twiss was obviously a special case, as the one committee member whose hospital will lose its beds.
Clearly the Conservative Group on DCC gave their East Devon members the main role in dealing with the Eastern Locality hospital beds issue when in May (with its return to Scrutiny looming) they made Randall Johnson chair and nominated two Exmouth members, Jeff Trail and Richard Scott, as well as Twiss as members of the Health Scrutiny Committee. With East Devon Tory leader, Paul Diviani, representing Devon’s district councils, 5 of its Tory members were from East Devon and only 7 from the other five-sixths of the Tory group.
East Devon Tories on the committee certainly lived up to their role on Tuesday. All except Trail voted, making half of all Tory votes cast on the committee and 3 out of 7 on the pro-CCG side. In contrast, only 4 of the 7 Tories from elsewhere in the county cast a vote on this crucial issue: East Devon’s Tories may have convinced themselves, but not their colleagues.
Paul Diviani spills the beans
With Randall Johnson preoccupied with timekeeping (except when the CCG were speaking), Scott silent and Twiss asking questions, it was left to Diviani (right) to express the Tory rationale. He claimed to speak for Devon district councils as a whole, but has acknowledged that he had consulted none of the others. He was happy to defy his own Council, which has voted to keep hospital beds, and spoke for himself – and East Devon Conservatives.
Diviani’s caustic little speech deserves more attention than it has been given.
- He started by saying that those who decide to live in the countryside expect diminished service, and must cut their cloth accordingly in current times – forgetting that many have lived here all their lives, or moved here long before the present Tory government arrived to savage the NHS.
- ‘Costs will always rise without innovation’, Diviani continued, forgetting that the ‘costs’ of community hospitals are rising particularly because of the Tory innovation which gave them over to NHS Property Services and its ‘market rents’.
- ‘Local decisions should be made locally’, he averred, overlooking the fact that Sustainability and Transformation Plans, Success Regimes and NHS property sales are all national initiatives forced on the local NHS – while NEW Devon CCG is so unrepresentative even of local doctors that only full-time managers (Sonja Manton and Rob Sainsbury) are allowed to present its case in public while its ‘practitioner’ figurehead, Dr Tim Burke, hides in a corner.
When, however, Diviani warned that ‘attempting to browbeat the Secretary of State to overturn his own policies is counter-intuitive’, he expressed the truth of the situation. The closure of community hospitals results from the determined policies of the Conservative Government. (Referral would have served the purposes of delaying permanent closures, embarrassing the Government and forcing its Independent Reconfiguration Panel to give an assessment of the issue.)
East Devon Tories are the Government’s faithful servants. ‘Don’t trust East Devon Tories’ over the hospitals, I warned during the County elections. How right have I been proved.
Proposal to move Seaton Post Office now being consulted on
The Post Office would move to WHSmith Local, 19 Harbour Road. Opening hours would be the same except on Saturday, when it would be open until 5.30 pm. Some services would also be available at the retail counter, including on Sundays from 7 am to 4 pm. Currently, wheelchair access is an issue, but ‘a permanent ramp with handrails would be installed’ – this needs doing before the switch – and ‘internally, there would be a hearing loop and space for a wheelchair’.
The better opening hours are an advantage but parking will be a problem: the consultation document points people to the pay & display on the seafront, but I think people will be reluctant to pay while popping in to the Post Office. The lack of on-street parking is likely to lead to more cars on the double yellow lines on Harbour Road.
There is also a downside for the town centre: I know when I park on-street to go to the current PO, I’m more likely to pop into shops in Queen Street, Fore Street and Cross Street. Harbour Road isn’t far from these, but if you’re parking on double yellows to go into the PO, you won’t be going – uphill – to the town centre shops.
What do you think? You can access the proposals HERE, where it also tells you how to send your views to the consultation, which you must do by 15 September. Remember Costcutter is closing and it’s vital that we keep a PO in Seaton town centre.
