Devon County Council has been carrying out a consultation exercise into how family orientated social services can be best delivered in the future. The main drivers for this consultation have been econonomic and desire to deliver the best value for money that is possible within the budget and in order to meet their statutory responsibilities as a County Authority.

The proposal that was put out for consultation envisaged that one or more "Family Hub's" be created in each District Council, City Council or other type of Authority area. In the document that was received by Okehampton Town Council, rather late in the consultation process, there was no mention of a Family Hub for Okehampton and only some vague promise that such facilities that a Family Hub could offer would be available via Hatherleigh or Tavistock.

On your behaf as Okehampton Residents, the Town Council was not impressed with the document and asked for clarification. The Council, via the Town Clerk, Emma James, has received a response from Vikki Hearn, who is Head of Service Children’s Commissioning and Resources at Devon County Council.

She writes: 

Thank you for highlighting your concerns. We would like to clarify that our initial proposal was for a main South and West Hub in Newton Abbot. However, after engagement with County Cllrs. in February 2024, we took on feedback and changed our original proposal for the formal consultation to include a Family Hub for each district, with identified outreach places.

The vision of Family Hubs is for a partnership and community approach which will allow families to access signposting, advice, support, and access to more specialised support through Family Hub staff who are embedded in and working in partnership with the community. Therefore, the aim is to be working in partnership with existing supports and places that families visit within their communities. Our aim is not to expect families to travel to a Family Hub building unless it is convenient and appropriate to them.

Our proposal is for Okehampton to be the Family Hub base for West Devon. We are proposing the hospital because we were aware of the existing development of a Community Hub at this venue which consists of Primary care, public health, midwives, and Mental Health Services. Our hope for Family Hubs is to develop spaces where services are co-located. This will promote joint working, sharing of skills across lanyards and ensure that families get a truly joined up service. Family Hub staff will be sensitive to family’s needs and will be ensuring they meet with families where is most comfortable and convenient to them. There is the addition of a phone line that families can call to speak to someone directly, plus an online form to request a call back in addition to a web site which has multiple resources and a chat function. However, with Family Hub staff becoming more visible and embedded in community activities it is also hoped that families will build relationships and feel comfortable to ask for support in whichever way suits their needs best.  We have been working with NHS Devon in relation to these proposes alongside other service in the area with the same intent.

Your feedback and concerns are really important, and we are committed to running a meaningful and equitable consultation. Therefore, we have included this letter in with the vast amount of consultation responses we have received.  We are also looking into the Ockment Centre, as a possible place where services are already being delivered to families, to see if we can have a presence here, or to see f this is a better place for a hub site location?  We will come back to you with the full results of the consultation when these are ready.

I am sure the Town Council is grateful for the response and this appears to go a long way towards answering their concerns.