Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust today announced that Finney House will be closing in the summer.
The Trust took over the lease of Finney House in Preston in November 2022 at a time when the facility was run as a residential home only and was rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission. It repurposed the building to provide step up/step down care in 64 beds over two floors. This helped to reduce pressure within Royal Preston Hospital in the months following the pandemic.
During that time there were regularly 400 patients in the Trust’s acute hospital beds who could be better cared for in a community setting and it was essential that space was freed up to deal with the backlog of elective care cases that had built up since March 2020.
LTH also took over providing residential care to residents living in on the top floor of Finney House and the staff already working there were given the opportunity to transfer across to the NHS.
The multi-disciplinary team have provided outstanding rehabilitation to patients, 80% of whom were able to return home from Finney House, which is higher than average for intermediate care facilities.
The difference between the amount the Trust receives for running Finney House and the cost of providing it is £5 million a year, and despite a series of discussions, health and social care partners have not been able to come up with a financially viable way of keeping it open.
Current patients will not be affected as beds will close gradually to new admissions and numbers of patients will reduce in a planned way. The local Integrated Care Board has responsibility for ensuring that patients needing intermediate care are found suitable placements in other facilities within Lancashire and South Cumbria.
There are currently 28 residents living at Finney House and Lancashire County Council will be working closely with the Trust and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board to support them to find homes elsewhere.
Every effort will be made to redeploy the 160 staff based at Finney House to roles elsewhere within the Trust, with trade union staff side representatives to be closely involved in that process.
Silas Nicholls, Chief Executive Officer for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, said: “Back in 2022, taking over Finney House enabled us to resolve a number of issues that the health and care system was experiencing following the pandemic, so it was very much the right thing to do for patients and residents at that time.
“However, things have moved on, and as there are alternative residential and intermediate care places within the system, funding Finney House is not something our commissioners can prioritise, so sadly it will close in the summer.
“We are proud of the high-quality care that staff have provided at Finney House and would like to thank them for all that they have done for the many patients who have been cared for by them. We will be working with staff and our trade union colleagues to do all we can to find them suitable roles elsewhere.
“In addition, all partners are committed to ensuring that residents are supported to find alternative homes and we will aim to continue to provide them with a high-quality service whilst that process takes place.”
Craig Harris, chief operating officer for the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board, said: “The local NHS is needing to make difficult decisions in the short term to ensure that we get our collective finances back on track and create truly sustainable services built around the needs of our communities in the longer term.”
“Whilst we understand that there is always concern and disappointment when any facility closes, we support the Trust in their decision and the work they are doing to make their services affordable. We have carefully considered the impact of this as an ICB working across clinical and commissioning teams. We will continue to work with the Trust by working with Lancashire County Council to ensure that residents find new homes with as little inconvenience as possible and focus as a system on how we commission community services which support our communities.”
