U-turn on mass expansion of covid care units as no funding available

Plans for a mass expansion of rehabilitation beds in new “Seacole centres” have been scrapped, with local leaders now told there is no capital funding to build them.

In late May, NHS England announced the “first” Seacole Centre in Surrey, for patients recovering from coronavirus, and asked other local systems to draw up proposals for similar units ahead of a possible second peak of the virus over winter.

The policy was designed to provide significant extra bed capacity to help get covid and other respiratory patients out of hospital more quickly, while offering effective rehab care.

But multiple well-placed sources have now told HSJ that capital bids for new Seacole units have been rejected.

In a statement, NHSE said: “Work with local NHS and social care providers suggests that these expanded rehab services can largely be provided in existing physical facilities as well as people’s own homes, so government has not allocated extra capital in year for this purpose.”

However, local leaders told HSJ that some of the plans to use “existing physical facilities” still required some capital funding to make them suitable for rehab care. One trust executive in the North West said: “If there’s no capital it means we can’t go ahead.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 5 August 2020