Bishop's Castle Community Hospital
This part of the website has been designed specifically for GPs, Clinical Commissioning groups, care homes and other care professionals who need the service referral information or access to Trust policies and care leaflets.
Temporary closure of hospital
On 7 October 2021 in the private section of our Trust Board meeting, the Board considered critical staffing and linked ongoing safety issues at Bishops Castle Community Hospital (BCCH).
After reviewing the evidence, the Trust Board decided to temporarily close the inpatient beds at BCCH on safety grounds, due to the consistent very high reliance on agency staffing and the lack of adequate numbers of staff to provide the services in a safe manner.
Closure of the hospital commenced on 17 October 2021, at which point no new inpatient admissions were received. The closure was complete by 31 October 2021, at which point all inpatients had been transferred to another appropriate place of care. All patients and their families were fully informed and involved in the transfer.
Further information is available on the page for patients and carers.
Update 25 April 2022
To be able to re-open the Bishop's Castle Hospital inpatient unit and ensure patient and staff safety, we must have at least 85% of the clinical team, as permanent staff. We cannot rely on agency workers. We currently have 40% of the staff that we need in post.
We are continuing with our staff recruitment campaigns and looking at different and innovative ways of working.
A recruitment day took place at Bishop’s Castle on 7 April. This was successful in attracting a number of new staff to work in roles across the South West region of the county. Unfortunately, not enough of these were suitable to work directly on the inpatient ward at Bishop’s Castle Hospital. As a result, its status is currently unchanged.