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Bright future for intermediate care
Support for older people in the borough to continue to live as independently as possible has received a boost as Bromley Council and Bromley Primary Care Trust agree on the future provision of intermediate care beds.
The PCT last night agreed to award contracts to Mission Care and Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust to provide beds in two locations, serving the north and south of the borough respectively.
The Council’s Executive Councillor for Social Care, Health and Housing, Councillor Chris Phillips, had approved the bids at his meeting on 20 July.
These beds are just one part of the intermediate care service currently operating in Bromley. The other is an established and very effective home-based service run by the Community Assessment and Rehabilitation Teams, known as CARTs.
All intermediate care is free of charge and helps to keep people independent by avoiding inappropriate hospital admission following an illness, and supporting people to cope after they have been discharged from hospital.
The Council and PCT are working together to provide intermediate care and will jointly fund the new service.
Elizabeth Butler, chairman of Bromley PCT, welcomed the step saying: “Public consultation clearly showed how important access to intermediate care is to local people and what a great contribution it makes to good recovery and preventing hospital admission. These two new facilities will offer first class care for those who can’t stay at home.”
Councillor Phillips said: “This is tremendous news for people in the borough who will have access to an effective, modern care service in purpose-built facilities. We are already leading the way nationally on intermediate care and look forward to working with Mission Care and Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
A strategy for providing intermediate care was agreed by the Council and PCT in May 2002 and formal consultation about the future of provision followed.
In order to establish the best and most appropriate arrangement for the residential part of the service, the Council and PCT followed a competitive tendering process.
Selection criteria were drawn up to ensure quality and the evaluation panel included a number of clinical staff and a representative of the PCT Patient and Public Involvement Forum.
Mission Care [a registered charity] has been awarded a contract to provide 22 intermediate care beds for a period of six years, with an option to extend for a further period not exceeding two years.
Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust has been awarded a contract to provide 36 intermediate care beds for a period of six years, with an option to extend for a further period not exceeding two years.
Current bed-based care is provided at three sites:
Kingswood House (residential home, 12 places, set up in 2000);
Lauriston House (nursing home, 12 places, set up in 1999);
Orpington Hospital (nursing home, 40 places set up on an interim basis in 2003).
Home-based care is provided through three Community Assessment and Rehabilitation Teams (90 equivalent places, set up in 2002).
The new service will continue to combine residential and home care.
For media enquiries, please contact Richard Simcox, Communications Officer, London Borough of Bromley, on 020 8313 4310, or email richard.simcox@bromley.gov.uk
