Title

ADULT SOCIAL CARE

Legal threat pushes Devon CC to pause care cuts

Devon CC will pause its plans to cut adult day and respite services after the mental health charity Mencap threatened to take legal action.

Devon CC will pause its plans to cut adult day and respite services after the mental health charity Mencap threatened to take legal action.

In January, the council announced plans to reduce its in-house provision for day care and respite services to help cut £30m from the adult care budget.

Devon today announced it would halt its consultation in order to ‘listen and evaluate' the feedback it had received from Mencap, staff, unions and carers.

A council spokesperson said: ‘We greatly value our ongoing working relationship with all of our stakeholders and believe it is only right, due to this and the volume of concerns, that time is taken to listen and evaluate.

‘We have therefore agreed to halt our current public consultations regarding day services and respite services so we can review all comments in detail.'

Bob Gaiger, a trustee of Exeter and District Mencap Society, said he hoped the council's review of the comments received led it to cancel its ‘distressing proposals for adult day and respite services'.

ADULT SOCIAL CARE

EFS: A symptom of a system under strain

By Phil Rook | 06 August 2026

Local government needs a funding framework that supports statutory services sustainably rather than relying on one-off borrowing to meet ongoing pressures, w...

ADULT SOCIAL CARE

Park the cynicism for Burnham's constitutional shift

By Heather Jameson | 06 August 2026

It will be down to Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make sure dropped bedpans no longer reverberate around Whitehall and instead all public services put purpos...

ADULT SOCIAL CARE

Doubts over health and care integration agreements

By Martin Ford | 06 August 2026

Doubts have been cast over the future of a key model for joint working between health and council services.

ADULT SOCIAL CARE

The severed links in health and care integration

By Martin Ford | 06 August 2026

Despite recognition of the benefits of closer integration between health and social care, recent months have seen a flurry of breakups in partnerships betwee...

Popular articles by William Eichler