A HEALTH service is to move from a senior center to another city, with the number of beds almost halved and more patients to be treated at home under new plans.
The Primrose Lodge unit, which helps people with complex mental health needs, is proposed to move from Chester-le-Street to Shildon.
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The Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation wants to relocate the inpatient recovery and rehabilitation unit from its current 15-bed home to a vacant eight-bed facility.
Jennifer Illingworth, the trust’s director of operations for Durham and Darlington, explained the measure to councilors at a meeting of the Darlington City Council’s health and housing scrutiny committee.
She said: “The main driver for this is patient safety.
“Primrose Lodge is an old house. It’s a beautiful old building, but it’s not really adequate for modern healthcare needs. We have had problems there. We can’t give residents an en-suite bathroom like any other inpatient facility we have.
“There are problems with the stairs. It’s all on the first floor so not great for anyone with access issues.
“We are talking about a reduction in beds, so when we move to the Shildon property, it will be reduced to eight beds instead of 15.
“There would be eight rooms with bathrooms. It is much more fit for purpose than modern mental health service delivery.
“We think we can get by with the seven fewer beds than we currently have.
“We have had some funds to improve the service of the community rehabilitation team. That means that what we would ideally like to do is allow more people to live in the community in homes and not in a hospital bed.
“That enhanced service will provide intensive in-home support to people to keep them in their own communities, and that will be a countywide service.”
He added that they still had more beds than other areas, including 15 beds at Willow Ward, West Park Hospital.
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