In a press statement issued today, September 6, the board of the Rye Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital announces its planning application (to be made later this week) to build a new 60 bed care home on land adjacent to the hospital. The hospital trust has entered into partnership for operating the home with Greensleeves Care, another charity which already runs 21 other residential, dementia and nursing care homes across the UK.
It is understood that 25% of the beds are to be allocated as community beds with priority given to local residents.
Delivering More Services in the Community
The Rye Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital Ltd, (the Charity), in conjunction with its development and operating partner Greensleeves Care, is pleased to submit this planning application to develop and operate a 60 bed care home on a one and a half acre site expansion of the Memorial Care Centre .
Greensleeves Care’s culture and ethos mirrors that of the Charity. It is a not for profit organisation with an excellent award winning reputation for the quality of its care provision across its other 21 residential, dementia and nursing care homes. An insight into this approach was made as part of their competitive submission to the Charity and a summary is attached.
Paul Newman, Chief Executive of Greensleeves Care states – “The Trustees of Greensleeves Care are committed to extending our award-winning care services to the local population of Rye. This new home has been sensitively designed by respected architects who understand the day-to-day running of a care home.
Our existing homes are well known for engaging and supporting the local community as it makes our homes a vibrant place to live and work. We look forward to working in partnership with local health and social care professionals to deliver the best possible outcomes for older people and their families in East Sussex.”
This application stems from a demand mapping study carried out by the East Sussex County Council that identified a lack of care beds at the east end of the county, forcing many families to place their loved ones into care a considerable distance from their homes. This is given added credence from a study, carried out by Newcastle University and published in the Lancet, which states that rapidly escalating community care needs will have to accommodate an additional 350,000 people with high care dependency by 2025 across England.
In addition, East Sussex County Council, in partnership with Clinical Commissioners and the East Sussex Healthcare Trust has formed an alliance known as East Sussex Better Together (ESBT), developing an integrated approach to the commissioning and delivery of health and social care services in East Sussex. A key part of this approach is to provide more services in the community reducing the pressure on and unnecessary admission to the acute hospitals. Catherine Ashton, Director of Strategy at the East Sussex Healthcare Trust states – “ By further expanding the range of services that the Charity provides at the Memorial Care Centre, Rye will play a significant role in meeting the needs of our local population closer to home, which is a key element of our ESBT Alliance strategy.”
This is also an important planning application for the Charity in its desire to become a national exemplar for community care. The Memorial Care Centre currently has the following facilities on its site:
- A Primary Care GP Practice of 5 doctors and 7500 patients
- A 19 bed NHS In-Patient Intermediate Care Hospital
- Numerous Out Patient Clinics including Orthopaedic Physiotherapy and Diabetic Retinal Screening
- 55 Units of residential Extra Care run by Sanctuary Housing Association.
- Planning consent to build a state of the art Day Centre on the old Ambulance Site
With this application the Charity seeks to add a further range of services through our chosen partner to meet the needs of the higher dependency patients in the community.
“I am particularly pleased that 25% of the beds are to be allocated as community beds with priority given to local residents” – says Jo Kirkham former Mayor of Rye.
Access to the site is well supported by public transport through the close links which the Charity has with Rye and District Community Transport charity, whose objects are focussed on the provision of not-for-profit community transport services through the 326 bus service and Dial-a-Ride.
Care has been taken to design a sympathetic building that fits into its environment. Tooley and Foster are an architectural practice that has considerable expertise in care home design. The result is a building that has the capacity and flexibility to meet the modern requirements of care provision and yet respects the boundary and visibility requirements of the location. Full supporting details are part of the planning application and available to the public.
This is a long term partnership between the Charity and Greensleeves which is dedicated to making a significant contribution to the health and wellbeing of the elderly and frail in the community and a key component of the interactive relationship between all of the services at the Memorial Care Centre..
Photo: courtesy of Tooley & Foster Partnership
At a presentation of this project yesterday it was underscored that this development meets a pressing requirement in the very east of East Sussex. Sited in Rye Foreign it is not covered by the Rye Neighbourhood Plan but as it will be visible from Rye to the south and sits close to the Rye boundary on the very edge of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, there is an interest in the context of the Plan, which seeks above all to preserve the unique character of Rye. It was pleasing to hear that the project team have noted the sensitivity by many in the Rye community to prominent developments on or close to the edge of the Town. It is to be welcomed that the architects have worked to mitigate its prominence by retention of trees, landscaping and design.
RNPSG
http://Www.ryeneighbourhoodplan.org.uk
25% community beds what a laugh, this is the “Rye Winchelsea & District Hospital not the those who can pay the top whack Hospital, or is it.
I know this story is some months old, but please let me correct Anthony’s statement about the nursing home site’s AONB designation. The site is not “on the very edge of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty”; it lies predominantly INSIDE the High Weald AONB. Although the site is in Rye Foreign, aspects of the Rye Neighbourhood Plan still apply. For example, the Plan opposes development in the AONB, seeks “to protect strategic and green gaps around Rye” and to preserve “the town’s visual appearance in the landscape”. Objective 1 of the Plan is that “Rye must continue to feel ‘compact'” and to prevent the town from sprawling into the surrounding green spaces. Rother District Council’s planning committee approved the nursing home on 19 April 2018. The planning report prepared for the committee contained an incorrect site plan. The report also claimed the home would form “part of the existing urban envelope” and that “the building would not extend further into the countryside than the existing cluster of dwellings in Old School Place”. I dispute these claims and invite Rye News readers to glance at the site plan that accompanies later articles about this project. You will see how far the building protrudes beyond the development boundary. It is no use attempting to protect Rye with the local plan if large-scale development is allowed to take place outside the town boundary, as is now occurring. That said, I support a nursing home in Rye — just not on this AONB location.