Update on replacing St Clare's Hospice delayed due to coronavirus

NHS chiefs had intended to reveal further details of plans to replace the former St Clare’s Hospice in May.

The borough has been without a dedicated palliative care facility since the charity collapsed into insolvency in 2019, but families and campaigners will have to wait to find out more about proposals for a new ‘spoke and hub’ model.

“We intended to have a progress report coming, said Matt Brown, director of operations at South Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

“Unfortunately we’ve not been able to move that work on as we anticipated, with everyone’s efforts being focused on the COVID-19 response between March and May.

“I’m really sorry to say that, I know that there are a lot of people anticipating that piece of work.

“We will have that paper for the July meeting of the governing body and we’ll be able to give a full update and progress report on where we’re up to.”

Care bosses have previously said St Clare’s Hospice’s former base in Jarrow is unlikely to be reopened.

But the prospect has been raised of palliative inpatients once again receiving care in the borough at a dedicated facility, possibly at or near South Tyneside District Hospital.

Before it was forced into liquidation, the CCG contributed about £800,000 a year to St Clare’s running costs, which ran to more than £2million annually.

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