A COMMUNITY hospital promised for Frenchay for more than 20 years has been scrapped.
The NHS body in charge of funding services in the region says there is “no longer a need” to build an in-patient rehabilitation unit on a part of the former acute hospital site reserved for the project, because it will instead focus on helping patients recover in their own homes, in line with changes in national policy.
It comes a few months after the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB) told the Voice there was no money available to take the project forward.
The site could now be sold by North Bristol NHS Trust to raise money to spend elsewhere.
News of the decision to abandon the plan for rehabilitation beds was contained in a report to April’s meeting of South Gloucestershire Council’s health overview and scrutiny committee, titled “Next steps for Frenchay Hospital site”.
It said: “National NHS policy now prioritises neighbourhood-based, home-first rehabilitation, supported by multidisciplinary teams. This represents a significant change from the assumptions that underpinned earlier plans for a bedded rehabilitation facility.
“Existing facilities are adequate, and South Glos has a high share of beds – current provision in Thornbury and Yate is suitable and appropriately staffed. Building a new site is also not financially viable or a capital funding priority.”
The ICB said South Glos already has more rehabilitation beds per head of population than other parts of the region.
ICB chief delivery officer David Jarrett told the meeting that the body had “no other commissioning intentions” for the land, which would enable North Bristol NHS Trust to consider options “including the potential opportunity to generate further capital funds for use on funding further capital priorities”.
The news was described as “deeply disappointing” by Tory group leader councillor Liz Brennan, who told the meeting: “People are already struggling to access GP appointments and services are stretched. What scares my community to death is the release of this site for more housing which increases this demand with no actual facilities.”
But council director of adult social care and housing Anne Clarke told the committee: “Older people lose their abilities if they are away from home for too long. We should be giving more people the opportunity to recover at home, to have rehabilitation at home, reablement at home, equipment assisted technology that enables them to continue an active life at home and in their community.”
Barbara Harris of the Save Frenchay Community Hospital Group has been campaigning for a new community hospital for more than 20 years. One was first agreed in 2005, as part of a plan to move all North Bristol NHS Trust acute hospital services onto one site, with an upgraded hospital built at Southmead.
But by the time the new Southmead opened and the old Frenchay closed in 2014, funding for a Frenchay community hospital, with 112 rehabilitation and mental health beds, had already been cancelled. Plans were later revived for a 50-bed facility, but nothing happened.
Mrs Harris said it was “no surprise” that the community rehabilitation facility plan had been abandoned.
She said: “Since 2005 the plan for Frenchay has been started and stopped five times, but there is no denying the need for the rehab unit when Southmead Hospital beds are either a quarter or a third full of ‘bed-blockers’ . In all, 750 beds have been lost, during which time the population has risen by 53,000.”
Mrs Harris said campaigners were calling on the new Bristol Hospital Group, being formed by the merger of the city’s two hospital trusts, to at last begin to implement the plan for a community rehabilitation hospital on the site reserved for it, “so that patients can receive the rehabilitation they deserve”.
She said: “Is it too much to ask that, even at this eleventh hour, highly paid managers and politicians will have the courage to admit their mistake and deliver the formally agreed community facility on the site reserved for healthcare services at Frenchay?”
ICB chief executive Shane Devlin told the Voice: “We recognise how strongly many people feel about the future of the Frenchay site and understand that this will be disappointing news for some.
“Over the past decade, the way rehabilitation is delivered has evolved significantly. The evidence shows that we have the right level of capacity to support people’s recovery, whether through our existing rehabilitation beds or through high-quality care provided in people’s own homes.
“In light of this, we do not believe that developing a rehabilitation facility on the Frenchay site would represent the best use of NHS resources.”
Meeting report by Adam Postans, Local Democracy Reporting Service