North Devon Link Centres (adult mental health support centres in Barnstaple, Bideford and Ilfracombe), service users, their families
and the public.
These centres provide buildings-based, vital, safe, privacy-respecting, dignified, life-saving, sustainable and long-term  support and therapeutic activities for adults with a wide range of debilitating mental health illnesses who have no other support from other services due to cuts, short-term provision, long waiting lists or not meeting the criteria set by the proposed separate, non-NHS services.
Too many vulnerable people are being left to try and navigate the difficult task of finding help while they wait for a social care needs assessment. This will lead to an increase in self-harming, self or emergency admittance to an already overwhelmed psychiatric ward, and suicide.
We, the undersigned, call on DCC/NHS-DPT to reopen all the referral routes to the Link Centres in Bideford, Barnstaple and Ilfracombe, and reinstate staff-led therapy groups, as they were pre-covid, so people can get the help they desperately need.