Save our Dementia Service – Stop this cut!
See below for a petition and lobby that you can support
Southend Council’s proposed budget for 2024/5 includes stopping all funding for Southend’s award-winning dementia support service. This is a team who provide a whole range of support to dementia sufferers and their carers.
The Council say they think this may be picked up by our social work teams and other organisations. Social work teams are already overstretched and they don’t deliver this type of service. Voluntary sector services like Citizens’ Advice don’t have the capacity or the relevant specialism.
The support groups the dementia service has set up won’t survive and the workers will no longer be there to deliver one-to-one help and information.
The result will be that people with dementia and their carers are left alone coping with this condition. They will suffer more stress and worse health outcomes. The cost of this will sooner or later come back to other Council services or the NHS – it’s an inhumane cut and it’s short sighted – it will cost us all more in the long run.
UNISON is talking to our members about the impact on jobs and on the service, but there are also a consultation, a petition and a lobby that you can take part in to help to fight this damaging cut:
Council Consultation:
You can make your views known through the Council’s own public consultation process: https://yoursay.southend.gov.uk/southend-dementia-support-service-consultation
sign this petition and share it with anyone you can:
https://www.change.org/p/maintain-funding-for-dementia-services-in-southend
JOIN A Lobby OF Council Scrutiny Committee 1st February
Please also support this lobby of the Council’s Budget, Policy and Resources Scrutiny committee on the steps of the Civic Centre at 5:30pm on Thursday 1st February. It’s being organised by concerned users of the service who are desperate about the impact on them and their loved ones. It’s a chance to highlight this issue before the damage is done. Let councillors know our feelings about this proposal. Tell your colleagues and friends!
Link to Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/366825025990351