We are legally still a hospital. In fact, we are the only hospital without any beds. Our ethos is prevention rather than cure, so in theory less beds will be needed. We aim to improve the health and wellbeing our all our communities in Woodbury, Exmouth and Budleigh. We may be based in Budleigh but our reach extends beyond its town boundary. People also come to us from far afield to experience our activities and services.
During that time, I think we have done pretty well. I might also be ever so slightly biased. With that in mind I commissioned an evaluation of our services, activities and support services. This evaluation has taken over five months to complete and the results are in.
The headline figure of which I am most proud is that we save the health and social care sector £340,000 a year through our loneliness and falls prevention work alone. This is a massive amount saved for our NHS. On top of this we put £300,000 into the local economy through employment and supporting local social enterprises. We do much more work facilitating and partnering other organisation to do their good work.
There are many other numbers and facts in the evaluation but for me the most compelling element are the user stories detailing people’s journey through the Hub. Many show people coming for one service for example counselling, then moving onto use others such as the gym, volunteering and then working for one of our social enterprises or even setting up their own business. The consistent theme is those that come here for a little help give back tenfold.
As we progress we will continue to help others and save the NHS more money.
Carers respite hours
Regular transport users
Meals cooked
“When you are here at Seachange, people care about your wellbeing and they want to help you. That includes the reception staff, the café, and the managers. It really does make a difference.”
