Closing mental health centres in North Devon 'will be regretted later'

If Devon County Council decides to go ahead with proposals to close a mental health support service in North Devon it will ‘deeply regret’ it in later years, according to councillors and campaigners trying to save it.

The local authority is consulting for a third time in three years on scrapping the ‘link centres’ in Bideford, Ilfracombe and Barnstaple, which it says can be replaced by voluntary and community run services.

People have until Wednesday, December 6, to let the council know if they think the plans, which will save £462,000, are a good idea.

The council says it will support current service users, assess their needs and help them with alternative community-run provision. In Holsworthy, support is now offered through the youth centre.

But Torridge District Councillor Annie Brenton (Lab, Bideford East) says closing the centres will leave people who have serious mental health problems even more vulnerable.

“It is disgusting that our social services have got to this level,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to matter how good the link centres are, how valuable they are to the community, and how much people appreciate them; some bureaucrat sitting in County Hall says we have to save money and that’s it.

“This is a relatively cheap service in the great scheme of things, with staff who have the skills to properly care and help the clients. You cannot just dump it into the voluntary sector.

“They are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They will deeply regret it in later years.”

Cllr Brenton described a recent meeting with the county council about alternative provision as ‘terribly unsatisfactory’.

She said: “There is no clear picture of what is going to replace it. It’s making everyone anxious.”

Link centres are run by the Devon Partnership NHS Trust, staffed by mental health support workers and offer somewhere for people to socialise, alongside well-being and therapeutic groups. People who attend them have a wide range of mental health problems and can be signposted to other services.

Since lockdown, activities and sessions have reduced and client numbers dropped, due in part, campaigners claim, to referrals from GPs being stopped.

In North Devon last year, more people than the national average were admitted to hospital due to self harming. Two more people die each year in Torridge from suicide, according to the council’s benchmarking figures.

Leader of North Devon Council Ian Roome (Lib Dem, Barnstaple North), a former community mental health worker, said: “Everyone will have a mental health episode in their life at some point and this service is vital.

“We already have an overstretched NHS. When someone has a mental health crisis they end up in A and E. At link centres, they get intervention very quickly. It is fundamentally wrong to close them.

Cllr James McInnes (Con, Hatherleigh and Chagford), Devon County Council cabinet member for integrated adult social care and health, said the proposals had ‘never been about seeking to reduce the support that people receive’.

“These services can be – and already are – delivered by other providers which have been put in place over the last couple of years following the creation of the Devon Mental Health Alliance.

“We have now seen in Holsworthy that it is possible, with our help, to successfully provide this same support within the community.

“We have heard from service users who described themselves as having severe mental health needs.

“While we acknowledge the strength of feeling, meeting severe mental health needs is not what the service was commissioned to provide, and it’s important that service users receive support from the people properly able to give that type of support.”

He said nothing would be decided until after the consultation was completed and they had had time to fully digest what people told them.

The council’s cabinet is expected to discuss it in February.