A petition has been launched calling for the Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group to drop its plans to close the Foxley Lane women’s mental health respite centre.

The online petition has already attracted more than 500 signatures in just a few days.

As Tanya McMurray has written today for Inside Croydon, the small residential facility at Foxley Lane can help save lives of women undergoing sever mental health issues and crises.

“With the closure of this service, for women in crisis the alternatives will be admission to an acute ward at the Bethlem Royal Hospital,” the petitioners write. This ward, called Gresham 1, “can be noisy, threatening and scary with many patients struggling with an acute episode of psychosis…” which, they write “… can cause further distress.

“For many women being discharged from Gresham they can and do leave more damaged than when they were admitted.”

The other cost-cutting option being suggested in the Croydon CCG’s cuts is home treatment, which for many of Foxley Lane’s patients isn’t an option at all. “It can be home life that caused the relapse into crisis in the first place,” the petitioners write.

Croydon CCG has already made £8 million-worth of cuts to NHS service budgets this year already. The proposed closure of Foxley Lane – with some of that resource being allocated to other mental health demands elsewhere in the borough – is part of a further £5 million budget cut which has been imposed on Croydon by the Government.

There is also a public meeting staged by the Croydon CCG in the community rooms at Bernard Wetherill House – the council offices on Mint Walk in the town centre – next Wednesday, November 30, from 6pm to 8pm. Croydon CCG asks that you register on its website (by clicking here) if you intend to attend.

You can also read the CCG’s proposals on the Foxley Lane closure by clicking here, and also take part in its public “engagement”.

• To add your name to the petition opposing the closure, click here
• Please don’t close Foxley Lane. It saves women’s lives – a patient explains why the centre is vitally important

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