The safe and effective care within our budget consultation has ended. We have had a fantastic response from the public and will be presenting the results at the Trust Board meeting on 6 October. Papers are posted here
Each financial year we sign a contract with our commissioners (NEW Devon Clinical Commissioning Group) which dictates the level of funding that the Trust will receive to deliver its services for that year.
This financial year, we have a gap in funding of £11million. £5million of this has to be found from our community services budget (this is across North and East of Devon).
The Trust has a strong track record in making the required efficiency savings whilst continually improving the quality of care we offer, but this year we are not able to absorb this gap in funding without making significant changes to the way services are delivered.
To enable us to continue delivering high quality care within our budget we need to shift our resources from hospital beds to the care surrounding the patients in their own homes.
This consultation is about how we decide the location of fewer community hospital inpatient beds in Northern Devon whilst giving people the reassurance as to the care they can expect instead in their own homes.
The consultation and engagement consists of four phases:
- Phase 1 (June/July 2015) – Meetings with Trust staff and stakeholders to discuss our vision and ideas for improving our services, the consultation process and the issues it will address.
- Phase 2 (August 2015) – A stakeholder reference group featuring League of Friends members, councillors and other local representatives was invited to a meeting to review the decision-making criteria taken from the CCG’s consultation and score the hospitals, based on these criteria. More information.
- Phase 3 (August/September 2015) – A public consultation is running from 18 August to 29 September. More information on how to get involved, including attending public consultation events.
- Phase 4 (October 2015) – Recommendations will be put to the Trust Board.
We would like to point out that this consultation is separate from the NEW Devon CCG’s Care Closer to Home consultation. Our options are in line with the CCG’s long-term strategy to support more and more patients in or close to their own home, which we believe is a better way of caring for people across Northern Devon. However, we have to proceed at a faster pace due to the fact that we have to find £11million savings in the 2015/16 financial year.