Members of Edinburgh’s Integration Joint Board for health and social care have today approved a raft of proposals aimed at modernising the city’s residential social care provision to manage increasingly complex care needs.

The plans, which are part of a wider Bed Based Review designed to ensure people are given the right kind of care, in the right place, at the right time, include changing Drumbrae Care Home from a residential care facility to one offering Hospital Based Complex Clinical Care (HBCCC).

The Board also approved proposals to decommission intermediate care at Liberton Hospital and to provide this elsewhere within healthcare facilities operated by the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership.

As well as this, the Board approved plans to decommission the HBCCC beds at Ferryfield House, Findlay House and Ellen’s Glen House and to re-provide HBCCC beds within the former residential care home facility at Drumbrae. Intermediate care beds will be commissioned within the remaining bed base at both Findlay House and Ellen’s Glen House, while the service at Ferryfield House will be decommissioned by October 2023.

Prior to the change of use at Drumbrae Care Home, the EHSCP will work closely with staff and every individual resident and their families to make sure they have a say in their future accommodation and so that they can move with their friendship groups, wherever possible.

It is anticipated that Drumbrae will become operational as a complex critical care facility in the first quarter of 2022.

Longer-term proposals to decommission residential care provided within four older care homes which are approaching their design life expectancy will be considered at a later date as part of a full public consultation with residents, staff and stakeholders on the future of care for older people in Edinburgh.

Ricky Henderson, Chair of the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board, said:

Approving these proposals for the first phase of a bed-based services review will modernise the provision and improve health outcomes for our citizens. As Edinburgh’s population ages we’re acutely aware that our current residential care provision sadly can’t meet the increasingly complex clinical needs a lot of older people have. Without change, particularly in how we meet clinical and nursing needs, we will struggle to offer the best possible right care at the right time for our older population, especially in the future.

The increase in intermediate care capacity – a form of frequent, intense, goal orientated rehabilitation – will give people timely access to help them to regain independence and return home safely and more quickly.

We also approved a reduction in hospital-based complex clinical care capacity so the service is accessible to those who cannot have their care needs met in their home, or any other homely setting. The service will be relocated into an existing care home in the north west of the city, and will maximise the use of resources across the city.  Our investment to establish nursing provision within our care homes has also been agreed. This will enable us to provide more complex care in our care homes, including dementia care.