Finney House update after claims Royal Preston Hospital-run care home to house refugees
A hospital-run care home which closed its doors due to budget cuts will NOT be used to house refugees.
Finney House, which supports Royal Preston Hospital, has fully closed after its last remaining permanent residents were moved out of the facility this month.
The luxury care home helped free up beds at the city hospital by reducing the number of patients stuck on its wards who were medically fit to leave, but had nowhere else to go.
The 64-bed facility in Flintoff Way has been shutting down in phases since March after Lancashire Teaching Hospitals revealed it faced a £5m funding shortfall for the service.
Finney House is now closed, leaving the building vacant with two years remaining on its lease before the site is handed back to landlords L&M Healthcare.
There was some speculation the hotel-style accommodation might be used to house refugees and/or migrants. But the Post can confirm there are no such plans in place.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals acknowledged it was aware of the speculation but have stated “categorically” that Finney House “will not be used for this purpose.”
The Post understands that restrictions on its lease stipulate the facility must only be used for rehabilitation purposes, such as supporting those who are unwell, vulnerable and/or elderly.
With two years left on the lease, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals said it was eager to find a new use for the facility and a number of options are being considered.
Why did Finney House close?
In February, both Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH), which runs the service, and the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), which plans and commissions healthcare in the region, were placed on an intensive financial recovery programme by NHS England.
LTH had a £58m savings target for the 2024/25 financial year – much of which had to be delivered in the latter part of that timeframe – while the ICB was trying to save £530m over the same period.
Finney House was relaunched in November 2022 and was heralded as an innovative way of better integrating health and social care.
The idea was to improve the flow of patients through the Royal Preston by preventing delays in the discharge process having a knock-on effect in accident and emergency – and even on the ambulance service – when people could not be transferred into wards because of a lack of space.