Meeting with Devon Health and Social Care Forum
It was a privilege to meet with Alan Worthington, Jean Daley and Elli Pang, from the Devon Health and Social Care Forum, to discuss their concerns about the interface between Health and Social Care in Devon and politics.
There are real concerns at the way patient and carers' groups have come under the umbrella of Local Involvement Networks, LINks, an organisation set up by the government to support patients and carers' input into the way services are run. In practice, voluntary groups are concerned that department of health civil servants, funded from the LINKs budget, are trying to put LINKs ‘on message' with the result that they are sometimes unchallenging or pushing community groups to accept services that they do not want.
We discussed many issues including the importance of community hospitals and how DHSC forum would like to see more funding for specialist community nurses. We discussed in particular the role of Admiral Nurses in supporting patients with dementia.
We agreed that the needs of carers and those suffering from mental health problems are sadly neglected in the NHS and social care, and we hope to maintain a dialogue to discuss concerns in the future.
