Coronavirus crisis means no patients are being admitted to North Yorkshire hospital
Services at Castleberg Hospital, near Settle, are designed to prevent hospital admissions, to facilitate early discharge and rehabilitation or, for some people, to provide end-of-life care services.
The hospital was reopened last year following a refurbishment. It had been temporarily closed in April 2017. Between November 2017 and February 2018, Healthwatch North Yorkshire consulted on community care services for people living in Craven, including the future of Castleberg Hospital. The NHS subsequently approved plans to reopen the hospital, subject to major work to repair the building.
Following the coronavirus outbreak, Airedale NHS Trust – which runs the service at Castleberg – has experienced increased sickness among clinical staff, and some nurses had to be redeployed to areas such as intensive care at Airedale General.
For two weeks until May 11, Castleberg Hospital could not be safely staffed and was unable to accept any admissions. While staff have now returned, the building – which dates from 1834 – makes infection control difficult, and very little elective activity such as surgery is being carried out due to the requirement for acute hospitals to free up capacity for people in need of critical care.
Liz Allen, Strategic Director – Organisation Effectiveness at Bradford District and Craven Clinical Commissioning Group, which commissions hospital services for the area, said: “Unfortunately, we are also seeing a reduction in attendance at hospital by patients with conditions such as strokes. This in turn means that there is less rehabilitation activity taking place in hospital settings and more in people’s own homes. The outcome of these factors is that there are currently no patients ready for admission to Castleberg Hospital.”
The situation is being reviewed several times a week, and the hospital will admit once a cohort of patients are identified who require in-patient rehabilitation and who are ready to be discharged from the acute phase of their care.
