Community rehabilitation beds at Oakwood Ward, Prospect Park Hospital, are being cut from 35 to 24.
Oakwood Ward, at Prospect Park Hospital, is a 35 single-roomed self-contained rehabilitation unit of the PFI funded site. The single room nature is not ideal for the predominantly frail elderly patients and requires a large nursing staff to ensure safety and quality. Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, has been unable to staff the ward without using an excessive number of agency staff. The South Reading CCG has agreed that the number of beds in use can be reduced to 24 with the same number of rehabilitation therapists available. This should help reduce the length of stay. leading to better use of the ward. In addition, some beds will be funded at the Duchess of Kent hospice which has more places now that the community end of life service is operating.