Rehab centre wins support
DOCTORS BACK FACILITY NEXT TO MINISTRY OF DEFENCE SITE
PLANS for a National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) have been backed by doctors’ leaders.
The approval was a further step forward for backers of the facility at the Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate, near Loughborough.
Miriam Duffy, NRC programme director, said: “The opportunity to establish the National Rehabilitation Centre is the most exciting initiative I have seen in 25 years of working in the NHS and it’s fantastic to secure the support of the regional clinical commissioning group (CCG).
“This is a big initiative with a big potential prize, namely making sure we rehabilitate more people to return to work and life than we achieve in the NHS at the moment through timely and intensive specialist rehabilitation. With the backing of our CCG, we can now start the important conversations with others in the NHS who need to be involved in deciding whether to give us the green light.”
The NRC Programme involves proposals to create a specialist 70-bed NHS facility alongside the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, which has already been built and started treating patients in late 2018, operated by the Ministry of Defence.
The NRC would provide patient care focused primarily on treating patients within the East Midlands region but with the potential to treat patients referred from elsewhere.
It would also combine specialist facilities for research and development and innovation in rehabilitation treatment as well as facilities for
teaching, education and to lead national improvements in rehabilitation.
The target is to be treating patients in 2024.
The decision to support the proposals for the NRC was taken by the governing body of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG.
With the support of the regional CCG now in place, the next step in decision-making is to secure overall endorsement from the NHS.
This will involve the assessment of both a clinical case and a business case, with a decision anticipated in the first part of 2021.
Amanda Sullivan, of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for the NHS to transform rehabilitation services in our area, increase specialist bed capacity and provide access to excellent facilities and the latest equipment and technology.
“The CCG gave its backing to this initiative following a wide-ranging public consultation this summer.
“This bespoke facility will mean those who have suffered serious injury or illness can receive state-ofthe art rehabilitation.”