Mary Reid

The Surrey Comet has done it again! A perfectly accurate front page report has been ruined by the sensational and totally inaccurate headline: 'Charity centre to shut'.

The last time this happened - only three weeks ago - two unrelated stories were combined under a 'Council wields axe' headline. The reality was that six elderly people were being moved from sub-standard accommodation, and that a local charity was closing down in spite of the support it was getting from the Council.

This time the story is about Springboard. I've written about this several times already (here and here and here) and you will know that Springboard is a NHS sheltered workshop for people with mental health problems or learning difficulties. 

Springboard is not a charity, and the story only makes sense when you know that the local Primary Care Trust - the commissioning arm of the NHS - is trying to close it down.

The Council's Health Overview Panel (which I'm on) forced Kingston Primary Care Trust, which funds Springboard, to consult on its proposal to close the workshop. At that stage we had no information about how the needs would be met of the 50 or so people who used the service. There was no assessment of their needs, so there was no way of analysing what the costs would be for alternative provision.

Last week Health Overview held a special meeting to hear fom the PCT about the consultation.

I was very critical of the consultation document, especially around the lack of costings, but also because it did not use Plain English, which in itself is a serious equalities matter.  Astonishingly it emerged that the needs assessments had still not been completed. 

The good news is that, under the leadership of our MP, Edward Davey, a rescue bid has been set up by a group of local charities. This is correctly reported by Peter Truman in the Comet.

So who was the sub-editor who wrote the headline 'Charity centre to shut'? A better headline would have been 'Charity centre to open'.