At the recent meeting of Rye Town Council's Public Services Committee, an update was present on future plans for the development of our community hospital . The charity is the freehold owner of the entire eight acre site known as the Memorial Care Centre and recently acquired the ambulance station next to the hospital to open up the opportunity of further services to the community.
During the last year construction has continued on the 55 unit Extra Care Homes being built by Sanctuary Housing Association in a Joint Venture with the Charity. Part refurbishment and part new build, the units will be ready for occupancy in January 2016.
Forty of the units will be rentals and 15 shared equity. Enquiries will be reviewed by a panel to include Sanctuary, Rother District Council and East Sussex County Council. Eligibility will be through a cascade giving preference to local residents with care needs.
The hospital comes of age this year, having been built 21 years ago, and it was timely to refurbish the main reception to a high standard ; and the quality of the improvements has encouraged East Sussex Healthcare to consider bringing a number of new out-patient clinics to the hospital early next year.
Turning to the future, the NHS Five Year Plan focusses a great deal on the desire to get more services out of the acute hospitals and back into the community. To this end, in Sussex, a joint initiative between the Clinical Commissioners and the East Sussex County Council under the banner of the “Better Together Fund” is working hard on a strategy to provide integrated clinical and social services in the community which will reduce the pressure on the acute hospitals.
To embrace this momentum in Rye, the Charity commissioned Dr Helen Tucker , to meet with community stakeholders, service commissioners and providers, to provide a vision for the Charity’s Board of future investment to capture the community opportunity.
Helen was the person who provided the original strategy paper that helped secure the hospital development 21 years ago and she is now Vice Chairman of the Community Hospital Association and highly respected adviser in the sector. Her report was well received by the Board and both the Clinical Commissioners and “The Better Together” team.
Her recommended investments focus on three main areas:
- A Minor injury and illness unit. There is considerable demand in the community to have a minor injury and illness clinic as over half of all attendances at A&E could be avoided . On its own the community is not large enough to justify the economics of such a unit, but Helen advises that if our strategy were to include orthopaedic clinics and investment in X-Ray facilities a strong case could be made for a composite service in the out-patient area of the hospital. The Charity is engaged in discussions with the East Sussex Healthcare to develop a business case for the investment.
- A Neighbourhood Centre. Within the next five years the Freda Gardham School in New Road is scheduled for redevelopment putting huge pressure on Magdala House to deliver most of the social services in the community. Day Care Centres across the county have been closed because of funding difficulties, but the charity believes that it could redevelop the ambulance site to provide a state of the art energy efficient centre which provides a combination of clinical and social services in line with “The Better Together Funds” aim to deliver integrated local care.
- A Residential Care Home One of the major benefits of acquiring the ambulance site is that it has a better and safer access to the main road , being further away from the brow of the hill. It would also enable the new road access on site to give direct entrance to the GP Surgery at the rear avoiding the difficult manoeuvre through the existing car park. And in the future it may also provide an opportunity to open up land for a new Residential Care Home. Helen pointed to the East Sussex County Council having carried out a demand mapping to show that Rye was undersupplied with affordable residential care beds.
In all, there is much for the charity to aspire to and its Board is dedicated to using the hard earned funds it raises for the optimum benefit of the community it serves.
Photo: Ray Prewer
Barry Nealon is Chairman of Rye, Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital
