New £10m ‘cottage hospital’ plans for school site

Plans for a £10m centre for elderly patients requiring specialist rehabilitation on the David Lister site are being led by the city’s GP-led Clinical Commissioning Group. East Hull has the highest level of admissions to hospitals, as well as unplanned emergency admissions and numbers of people having a stroke, fall or fracture. But the development hinges on Hull Council agreeing to gift the land for free.

Councillors meeting next week to discuss the facility will be told the aim is to mitigate the “explosion in demand for health and social care, particularly around long-term condition management and illness associated with old age”.

The facility - which should open at the end of 2016 - will include rehabilitation facilities, a multi-use consultation and treatment suite and a base for the health and social care team.

The idea is for the centre to act as a halfway point between home and hospital, helping free up much-needed ward space at Hull Royal Infirmary.

The health and social wellbeing board’s chairman, Coun Colin Inglis said: “It will be cosy, pleasant, well-staffed and attentive to peoples’ needs. If this works we should have more of them. Some will stay overnight; others will go in and get things done and go home in a more pleasant environment than queuing up in the tower block.”

The meeting will seek agreement from councillors to transfer or gift the land - which could be worth nearly £800,000 - to the NHS - as it will otherwise be outside a £10m “cap”. A legal agreement will mean that should the NHS not need the site, Hull Council will be able to repurchase it for free.