PEOPLE living in West Devon are invited to hear proposals for the future of community health services at a series of public meetings and drop-in sessions.

The Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) published its commissioning intentions for community services in Devon on September 17.

These include the proposals for community hospitals, health and social care hubs, urgent care services in the community, stroke services, physiotherapy, community nursing, chiropody, leg ulcer clubs and more.

The GPs who are leading this are keen to hear from people right across communities to find out what they think about the changes proposed. Several meetings have already been held and more have been arranged.

Dr Tim Burke GP and chair of the NEW Devon CCG said: 'The aim of the proposals is to meet local healthcare needs both now and in the future. We have an ever growing population here in Devon, particularly amongst the elderly and we know changes need to be made to continue to meet healthcare needs.

'Our aim is to refocus resources to support more people to be cared for safely at home. We know that is where most people want to be and with the right community services in place more people can be supported.

'However, where it is clinically appropriate for a person to be cared for as an inpatient in a community hospital they will still be able to access a bed no matter where they live in Devon. We want to hear the feedback on the proposals from as many people as possible.'

At the events people will also have an opportunity to discuss and comment on the proposals.

The public meeting on proposals in Tavistock will be held on Wednesday, November 12 at Tavistock Town Hall from 4pm to 6pm and for Okehampton a public meeting takes place at Okehampton Town Hall on Wednesday, November 12 from 6pm to 8pm.

For more information or to register for one of the above events, contact Nicola Webber on [email protected]">[email protected] or 01392 356 129.

More details will be available in the coming week on the NEW Devon CCG website's community services page http://www.newdevonccg.nhs.uk/get-involved/get-involved/community-services/101039">www.newdevonccg.nhs.uk/get-involved/get-involved/community-services/101039

l NEW Devon CCG last Wednesday published its cost-cutting proposals to prioritise NHS constitution requirements — and reduce its deficit.

The proposals were due to be discussed by the NEW Devon CCG Governing Body yesterday (Wednesday).

The proposed series of measures include introducing threshold limits at Body Mass Index of greater than 35 for hips and knees and to consider increasing the range of procedures this limit will apply to; requiring smokers to quit for at least six weeks prior to routine surgery and introducing a GP home visiting service, starting each morning to anticipate the care needs of particularly frail people to avoid hospital admissions.

Last year the CCG returned a £14.5-million deficit and this year it had been predicting the same.

But its confidence in meeting this at the end of the current financial year has gradually declined as demand for services outstrips what it is able to offer.