Consultation

The Great Hospital is a charity and Registered Social Landlord which endeavours to provide the best possible affordable independent living accommodation for local, older people in need. We deliver this with the parallel responsibility of preserving and maintaining our beautiful heritage site.

The changes are about adapting what we do to enable us to be financially sustainable and to fairly use the charity’s resources for the benefit of all residents, offering value for money.

Historically, a care team has been employed by the Great Hospital charity to provide regulated care services (also known as ‘Personal Care’ or ‘Extra Care’ or ‘Domiciliary Care’) for a relatively small number of residents of Prior Court. This care provision has continued despite the care home, Elaine Herbert House, closing in 2012. Over many years, the charity has subsidised this care provision and the increases in costs year-on-year have meant this is now unsustainable. In 2022-23 the charity funded a total annual subsidy of £0.5 million for the care provision.

Increasing pressures on the charity’s costs, along with rising difficulties in the regulated care sector, most notably the recruitment of staff, have prompted us to review the future viability of providing subsidised, regulated domiciliary care for a relatively small number of residents. 

We also have a duty to better align ourselves to the objectives within our Scheme of Charity, specifically to invest in, maintain and preserve our site, whilst also, where affordable, provide additional support to all residents. 

The proposal is that we cease to provide in-house regulated care, with effect from June 2024.

A Resident Engagement Team is being proposed to support all residents at the Great Hospital to live independently and to enjoy the unique community and everything it has to offer.

Residents who require care will be supported in sourcing this directly from external providers.

The Great Hospital will assist with providing the details of some of the local external providers and with accessing support from Norfolk County Council for those residents who need it.

• Care provision and the introduction of the new Resident Engagement Team
• Catering and retail provision
• Resident alarm call system and out of hours support
• Resident documentation

A number of staff whose roles are directly affected by the changes are unfortunately at risk of redundancy. We are consulting with staff separately and supporting them through this process.

The timetable and topics for the resident consultation are as follows: 

• February – Care provision and the introduction of the new Resident Engagement Team
• March – Catering and retail provision
• March – Resident alarm call system and out of hours support
• April – Resident documentation

Residents are being asked to complete a short questionnaire on each of the consultation topics.

These will be followed by a face-to-face discussion session on each topic.

Feedback can also be provided by using the email feedback@greathospital.org.uk