As part of the efforts to help people leave hospital at the start of the outbreak, the Best Western Hotel Rembrandt on Dorchester Road in Weymouth and the Grange Hotel at Oborne, near Sherborne, offered accommodation for people not affected by coronavirus and who were medically fit to leave hospital.
These people couldn’t go directly back to their own homes as they were waiting for a social care help and support package.
Dorset Council worked with health and social care partners to put joint plans in place so that the most critically ill people had access to the right help and support in hospitals and there were beds available to care for those with the highest level of need.
There was a period of time when care and support in people’s homes became increasingly difficult to find, so the hotel-based care provision made sure anyone who was able to leave hospital could do so in a safe way, while we worked with them to get the support they’d need to return home. This interim arrangement meant they could continue their recovery in a more homely environment.
The council would like to thank all parties, especially the hotels, for the efforts made to get things up and running so quickly. This gave valuable assurance that we could cope in the event of high demand. Luckily here in Dorset, the level of need has not been as high as had been first anticipated and the cases much lower in numbers.
As a result of this, we’re now confident that there is enough capacity in the care sector to support people in their own homes in a variety of ways without the need for the additional space in the hotels. The council is now working with the hotels and partners to end the service and return all the equipment provided to set it up.
We are continuing to look to the future at how the most vulnerable people can get the right help and support, in the right place at the right time and this will involve working with both statutory, voluntary, community and commercial partners in the area.
Why not reinstate all the community hospital beds that have been cut in the last few years? They provide an invaluable service of step down care and rehabilitation. The Council and Dorset NHS are an integrated system now aren’t they? Community hospitals make sense.
Hi Claudia. The hotels were not being used as a medical setting which is why it wasn’t appropriate to use community hospital beds. They were being used as a social care base which needed specialist equipment. The integrated care system (Our Dorset) is continuing to look at care and support provision in communities. Thanks, Paul