Claire Molloy, the chief executive at Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is currently meeting with representatives from each of the community hospitals and the League of Friends to look at proposals that have been made by the group for the future of the hospitals. This piece of work is exploring possible solutions that the League of Friends, local GPs and staff have proposed. Although this is a separate piece of work to the Success Regime consultation process, we will feed the outcome of this work into the consultation process. QUESTION: Will any staff lose their jobs? The new community hospital model will require less staff. However, we are already starting at a point where we have a large number of vacancies across our units and we know that in areas where beds are lost there will be reinvestment back into the community which will lead to more jobs in the community. We will make every effort to retain all of the staff affected by the proposals, working with them individually to provide appropriate redeployment opportunities to suit their needs. This will follow the approach we took when we closed the 14-bed unit at Reiver House in Carlisle and moved the staff into the Hospital at Home service. This included supporting two members of staff to drive so that they could work in the community. QUESTION: What will happen to the rest of the community hospital services? Some of the teams work into the hospital will they need to be reduced in size? – The proposals relate to community hospital inpatient beds only. The consultation does not propose to change the wide range of other services provided from the community hospitals. QUESTION: How much money will this save? The preferred option will save £2m over five years with half of that (£1m) being reinvested into ICCs. After the reinvestment there is therefore a relatively very small saving of around £1m annually from 2021/22 onwards. Whilst this will help with the local health economy deficit, it must be remembered that the main reasons for the changes to the community hospitals are the long term stability of the service and safety of patients and staff. QUESTION: What will happen to the units that close? There is a vibrant future for all of our community hospitals regardless of whether they have inpatient beds on site. As we work with our communities to develop ICCs Communities, it is our ambition to utilise this space to provide services needed by the local community, with the community hospitals acting as hubs from which to co-ordinate the health and wellbeing needs of the population.
Claire Molloy, the chief executive at Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is currently meeting with representatives from each of the community hospitals and the League of Friends to look at proposals that have been made by the group for the future of the hospitals. This piece of work is exploring possible solutions that the League of Friends, local GPs and staff have proposed. Although this is a separate piece of work to the Success Regime consultation process, we will feed the outcome of this work into the consultation process. QUESTION: Will any staff lose their jobs? The new community hospital model will require less staff. However, we are already starting at a point where we have a large number of vacancies across our units and we know that in areas where beds are lost there will be reinvestment back into the community which will lead to more jobs in the community. We will make every effort to retain all of the staff affected by the proposals, working with them individually to provide appropriate redeployment opportunities to suit their needs. This will follow the approach we took when we closed the 14-bed unit at Reiver House in Carlisle and moved the staff into the Hospital at Home service. This included supporting two members of staff to drive so that they could work in the community. QUESTION: What will happen to the rest of the community hospital services? Some of the teams work into the hospital – will they need to be reduced in size? The proposals relate to community hospital inpatient beds only. The consultation does not propose to change the wide range of other services provided from the community hospitals. QUESTION: How much money will this save? The preferred option will save £2m over five years with half of that (£1m) being reinvested into ICCs. After the reinvestment there is therefore a relatively very small saving of around £1m annually from 2021/22 onwards. Whilst this will help with the local health economy deficit, it must be remembered that the main reasons for the changes to the community hospitals are the long term stability of the service and safety of patients and staff. QUESTION: What will happen to the units that close? There is a vibrant future for all of our community hospitals regardless of whether they have inpatient beds on site. As we work with our communities to develop ICCs Communities, it is our ambition to utilise this space to provide services needed by the local community, with the community hospitals acting as hubs from which to co-ordinate the health and wellbeing needs of the population.
WNE-Cumbria-Healthcare-for-the-Future-Community-Hospitals-Briefing-Note.docx