Disgust as county council votes to shut down North Devon’s Link centres

Devastated campaigners shouted ‘shame on you’ after a decision to close mental health centres in North Devon.

Devon County Council’s cabinet was deliberating whether to shut the North Devon Link Service, which provides mental health services to residents in Barnstaple, Bideford and Ilfracombe.

The council said it had been working with the NHS and the Devon Mental Health Alliance to ensure that replacement services were available, and that clients would be supported to access those over a period of at least three months.

But those campaigning for the Link Service to remain open expressed grief when Devon’s cabinet voted to close them.

Shouts of ‘shame on you’, ‘ridiculous’ and ‘disgusting’ filled the cabinet chamber.

Speaking after the meeting, Terry Elliott, who sits on Ilfracombe Town Council, said she had been campaigning to keep the centres open for around two-and-a-half years.

“I’m absolutely disgusted by the decision,” she said.

“The whole process has been so disrespectful, and there have been so many misrepresentations of information, consultations that have not been fit for purpose and thrown out and all while people attending are people experiencing chronic mental ill health or acute mental ill health.

“And the way they have been treated has added to their anxiety, stress, and fear of the future.”

Above: The Link Centre in Bideford. Credit: Google Street View

Cllr Elliott added that the Mental Health Alliance, which has been presented as a replacement service for the Link Centres, “has not got the funding or the capacity to provide any alternative services.”

Before the decision, Ilfracombe county Councillor Paul Crabb pleaded for members to think again.

He said the services had been enjoyed for ‘many years’ in North Devon, and that while the reports prepared for councillors were wide-ranging, they overlooked two key points.

“Firstly, the description of the existing service as an ancient anachronism may be something of a disservice,” he said.

“In a series of moving testimonies from the user group, the head of service and cabinet member were treated to emotionally moving witness statements of how the Link Centre at Ilfracombe had outperformed its remit at no additional cost.”

He also reinforced Cllr Elliott’s point, that in 12 months of asking he had ‘not had a detailed answer’ about how Link Centre users would access other services and what those might be.

Mr Crabb published his full speech on Facebook shortly after the meeting and said the Ilfracombe Link service provided a thread linking users to a more stable life.

He said: “There seemed to me, to be a real risk that the removal of this thread would have repercussions further down the line in the form of ramped up need of acute services.

“I believe that the cabinet member and the officer were both surprised by the level of support that the Link in Ilfracombe was providing.”

Mr Crabb had urged councillors to think about how they were voting and added: “I genuinely think you will struggle to vote to close a service without knowing what is actually going to replace it.”

But Sarah Adams, deputy chief operating officer for the Devon Partnership NHS Trust, told the meeting the closure of the Link Service and its replacement with alternative services was important.

“We have restructured the system so there is a link with primary care,” she said, adding that “Link is not a clinical service,” suggesting that it was currently dealing with issues that were more complex and challenging than its remit was meant for.

She added: “Now, the routes and pathways into services are simpler, and while it will take people a while to get used to, we are constantly checking to see if they are working.”

Councillor James McInnes, the cabinet member for integrated adult social care and health, said he ‘fully appreciated’ the feelings of campaigners at the back of the room.

“I am human,” he said.

“I think we have a good solution for a replacement service and we are modernising how we support people.

“I understand people who have had the service for over 30 years are frightened, and upset and want things to continue, but I have to look at what the Government has done in recent years in terms of putting considerable sums into mental health and the Mental Health Alliance is the result of that.

“It wouldn’t be right for us to have another service beside it doing the same thing.”