Sean Brogan, of Coombe Vale Road, Teignmouth, writes:

South Devon Clinical Commissioning Group’s (SDCCG) ‘plan’ is to close Buckfastleigh/Ashburton, Bovey, Dartmouth and Paignton community hospitals and replace them with home care. A large part of the latter care would be provided by the Mears Group – a private organisation.

The SDCCG says in their consultation document – ‘The way domiciliary care in the home is purchased in Devon has recently changed. In South Devon and Torbay the primary provider is Mears, which is responsible for providing care directly or managing other providers. This change will improve the quality of patient care, as there will be a greater mix of personal care workers. People will receive packages of care more quickly, careworkers’ pay and conditions will be improved, and carers will receive more training. This approach complements the proposed model of care.’

It is quite obvious from that, The Mears Group had already been selected before the so-called ‘consultation’.

However, The Mears Group has been subjected to a Care Quality Commission inspection and has received a devastating report of its total inadequacy to be selected and is available here – http://healthwatchtorbay.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/HWT-FINAL-MEARS-REPORT-v8.pdf.

There is a raft of inadequacies and failures and includes late arrivals, staff always rushed, workers do not know what they are supposed to do when they eventually arrive, lack of understanding of medical intervention, clients not listened to. The staff lack training and are demoralised. Well.... that is something to wake up to as a planned recovery method by SDCCG in which this input is a major input at your home!

This calls into question the whole judgement of those who are deciding the future of our NHS. I believe that the ‘consultation’ should be stopped and the plans scrapped. The secret way in which hospital plans are being laid out all over Devon to meet the £20 billion cuts before 2020 should be a concern to us all.

The ‘democratic deficit’ in the way that these decisions are being made are causing great concern among communities. Personally, I have no faith that I would recover at home after being discharged from hospital to home. I would rather be in one of our community hospitals, many of which they intend to close. Some readers of this letter may be irritated by my use of inverted commas for certain words but I feel they are necessary in this era of ‘democratic deficit’, ‘transparency’ and ‘lies’.

Some doctors do not do their profession any good by participating in these austerity measures and there is far more in the pipeline.