SERVICES in West Somerset to support people who have had strokes will be cut from April after funding is withdrawn, the Stroke Association charity announced this week.

The services, which are based at Williton Hospital and reach into the county, are set to end after funding from Somerset County Council and Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) dries up.

Now the charity is urging residents to get in touch with their councillors and the CCG and work together to stop the cuts.

The move follows recent controversy around strokes after the CCG temporarily closed six of 12 stroke beds at Williton Hospital, which serve patients around West Somerset and beyond.

Jacqui Cuthbert, regional director for the Stroke Association in the South West, said the charity was hugely disappointed.

“These cuts will have a significant impact on vulnerable stroke survivors, their carers, and loved ones, and we strongly encourage councillors and the Clinical Commissioning Group to stand up for local stroke survivors and oppose this proposal.”

She said the association provided practical advice and emotional support twhich stroke survivors and their families desperately needed, and the impact of the cuts would be devastating.

“Our services have helped people return to work, find their voice again, and live independently in their own homes,” she said.

“This crucial support also helps to prevent further avoidable strokes and deaths, and it is outrageous that this is even being considered.”

She said latest figures from Public Health England show that at the end of 2015 there were over 12,500 people diagnosed with stroke in Somerset and the Stroke Association services supported them to make the best possible recovery.

“Although people can recover from stroke with the right support, too many survivors are written off and denied their right to recovery,” she said.

“Our services provide this lifeline – but this proposal puts people’s lives and recoveries at risk.”

A joint statement by the Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group and Somerset County Council (the Joint Commissioning Board) said they had decided not to provide the grant to the Stroke Association for 2017/18 because of budget pressures, and there were now other services available that could meet these needs.

“We have done our very best to make the central government funding for this support last as long as possible,” they said.

“It ran out several years ago and we have managed to use one-off funding from other sources to give annual grants to the association.

“However, there are unprecedented pressures on all our budgets and it’s essential that we make the limited funds we have go to support as many people as possible.”

The statement also said the range of support available to stroke patients, their families and carers, had improved since this service was started in 2008:

“We are confident that other services now available - for example Health Coaches, Health Connections and a county-wide carers service – will be able to meet the needs of those currently being supported by the Stroke Association.

“We have offered to help the association explore options for other local funding and will be working with them to ensure a smooth move to alternative services and to make sure these services deliver the support needed by stroke survivors and their families.”

Barbara Heywood, of Williton Hospital League of Friends which has been campaigning to save the stroke beds at the hospital, said she was stunned to hear the news.

“The Stroke Association does such valuable work supporting stroke patients once they are discharged from clinical care, it offers them so much support, I’m absolutely horrified,” she said.

“The CCG has cut beds, people are being discharged as early as they can be, and now this – it’s a disgrace. They seem to be on a mission to punish people who have the audacity to have a stroke.”

She said she knew from personal experience what stroke could do to people having nursed her mother for five years following a stroke.

And, she said, the league was still carrying on its battle over stroke bed closures at Williton Hospital, where the six beds meant to close were currently in general use.

“The beds are full to capacity, it shows the need is there,” she said.

The West Somerset Stroke Club based in Minehead, which is affiliated to the Stroke Association, said the cuts would not affect it, as it was completely self-supporting.

Anyone wanting to contact the Stroke Association about the cuts should email Jacqui.Cuthbert@ stroke.org.uk or visit the website.