Inpatient palliative care services in Walsall are being taken over by the Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, who will replace St Giles Hospice as the provider from September.
The Trust will take over running the specialist adult inpatient unit at Walsall Palliative Care Centre from the hospice. The service will integrate with other specialist palliative and end of life care services already provided by the Trust at the Palliative Care Centre, across the community and at the hospital.
St Giles Hospice has provided inpatient palliative care services in Walsall for the last nine years as part of an NHS contract that comes to an end this year. The future of the inpatient unit had been at the heart of recent discussions between St Giles, Walsall Healthcare and NHS Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and the three organisations believe that integrating end of life care services under one provider will offer a more seamless experience for patients and their families.
The change means that inpatient care at Walsall Palliative Care Centre, along with staff, will transfer from St Giles Hospice to Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust. There should be no disruption to service or patients during this transfer and inpatient care will continue to be delivered from the same location.
Both St Giles Hospice and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust palliative care services have achieved an ‘outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and are confident that this standard of care will continue.
Emma Hodges, CEO at St Giles Hospice, said: “It is with great pride, gratitude and sadness that we make this announcement. We know how much it meant to the people of Walsall to have their own hospice and we are so very grateful to the local community who have helped us fund such a high-quality service over the past nine years.
“As the contract ends we have to look at what we believe is the best long-term solution for families, and we remain committed to the Walsall population, who will continue to have access to some of our charitably-funded services.
“Patients and families in Walsall remain at the heart of these decisions and we are committed to working alongside the CCG and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust to ensure a smooth transition.”
Daren Fradgley, Executive Director of Integration at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Over the past nine years we have all worked very closely with St Giles to successfully provide excellent, outstanding-rated, palliative care services for the people of Walsall.
“As a Trust we are the host provider of the Walsall Together Integrated Care Partnership and our ambition is to work together to provide fully integrated health and social care services across the borough.
“End of life care is a priority for us all and this as a great opportunity to build on our collective ambitions to provide a seamless approach to care by bringing all palliative care services and the staff who provide them together.
“We are extremely thankful to St Giles for all the excellent work that has been done over the last nine years and also to the community of Walsall for the support they have given through charitable donations.
“We will continue to work closely with service users, their carers and families as well as staff to ensure that their needs are met as we work through this period of transition, and look forward to seeing how we can work together in the future to further improve services for the people of Walsall.”
For more information visit St Giles Hospice
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