Care hotel set up to ease pressure on Norfolk NHS services
The area’s health and care system remains in a ‘critical incident’
A new temporary care facility is being set up in Norfolk to ease unprecedented pressure on NHS services in the region.
The care hotel, which will be located in a city-centre hotel in Norwich, will look after people who are ready to leave hospital but need extra care support before they can go home.
It comes as the area’s health and care system remains in a ‘critical incident’ due to sustained and unprecedented pressures on services.
The pilot scheme will cater for up to 15 patients on a short-term basis for three months and will mean hospital beds can be freed up to support those who need inpatient care in a hospital setting.
Cath Byford, Chief Nurse at NHS Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) says it will free up hospital beds: "The biggest challenges is that we've had huge demand on our urgent and emergency care services across the county... we have got increased numbers of people who are remaining in hospital who actually don't need to be there... they need to have some care at home but there's a shortage in the care workforce.
"Therefore what's happening is people are getting stuck in hospital, so if people can leave hospital at an earlier opportunity it means those beds are available for people who need them, who need that emergency access to treatment."
She also said, depending on the pilot's success, they'd consider setting up more care hotels: "We are going to make sure that we monitor closely and evaluate the impact of the care hotel, and along with other measures that are being put in place to try and increase the number of care staff that are available to be able to support people at home, what we'll do is look to see is this something we either want to continue or not.
"If we do want to continue it, we'll look into whether or not there would be a benefit to widening it, so hotel isn't just in the Norwich area, there may be need to be one in, say, King's Lynn or in Great Yarmouth."
It's expected to open in the next few weeks.
It will not be suitable for those with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis or those displaying symptoms.