IT'S good news that we've won our local campaign to save Exeter's lollipop men and women. As the Echo said in its comment column at the time, this was "a cut too far".
But Devon County Council, which announced the U-turn this week, warned this may only be a temporary reprieve.
The cash-strapped local authority has only reinstated the funding for a year and says the further deep cuts proposed by the current Government, would make the service difficult to sustain in future.
There's also been an outcry about proposals to cut our bus services – in particular the T and P buses in Exeter. These plans are still on the table and being consulted on.
They're being vigorously opposed by Exeter's Labour councillors. But the more members of the public who respond to the consultation, the better. You can do so by e mailing or writing to: https://new.devon.gov.uk/publictransportbudget/
With the Chancellor, George Osborne, saying he wants to reduce public spending to a level not seen since the Thirties, my worry, if the Conservatives get back in, is that the loss of our bus services and school safety patrols will be as nothing compared to the axe that will be wielded to whole swathes of our vital public services.
Under Osborne's proposals 60 per cent of the cuts are still to come.
As the Financial Times, not exactly a raving, left-wing publication, said recently: "this would pose a serious threat to Britain's whole social fabric".
The recent decision to investigate plans to integrate hospital and community health services in Exeter and the surrounding area is madness.
At the moment, community services in our area are, bizarrely, delivered by North Devon Hospital in Barnstaple. Our local NHS wants the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital to provide them instead.
This would provide a seamless service for the patient between "acute" hospital, the Royal Devon & Exeter, our local community hospitals and care at home.
It makes absolute sense. But under this Government's crazy "competition" rules, the "competition regulator" Monitor has intervened following a complaint from North Devon Hospital.
North Devon does not want to lose the contract and therefore the income.
The result: the delay and possible blocking of an attempt to improve the quality and safety of patient care and save money.
If our local NHS is forced to go back out to tender we could end up with a private company getting the contract.
This is so insane that even the Conservative MPs surrounding Exeter have been up in arms. Let's hope Monitor and Ministers are listening.
What's really needed, though, is the repeal of those parts of this Government's disastrous Health and Social Care Act which have contributed to this fragmentation and privatisation, where different parts of the NHS fight turf wars rather than work together in the best interests of patients and the public.
