You may have seen recent articles in the local paper about the Save St Johns Court Campaign. For those that don’t know, St Johns Court is Exmouth’s Community Mental Health Team Base and it is at risk of closure by the Devon Partnership Trust (DPT) in an effort to save money.
At Open Door, we support people every day who are struggling with their mental health, we see just what a huge need it is in our community and we see what a good job the staff at St Johns Court are doing. We know many people who are seen at St Johns Court who simply would not be able to travel to assessments and appointments at an Exeter hub, it would cause them far too much distress.
Thanks to some strong campaigning, it wasn’t closed in December 2015 (which was DPT’s original plan) and we have now been assured that they will not close St Johns Court until they have found a suitable venue to relocate to in Exmouth. This is great news but we still have strong concerns that there are no suitable alternative venues in Exmouth and it would be such a loss to close St Johns Court which is a purpose built, calm, easily accessible building – all of which makes a huge difference to patients and staff.
Our campaign continues and we will soon be launching a facebook campaign, hoping to take it viral. In the meantime, if you would like to sign a petition to Save St Johns Court you can at: https://www.change.org/p/save-st-john-s-court-community-mental-health-team-base-in-exmouth-devon.
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