INPATIENTS at Alston’s cottage hospital have been moved to Brampton Community Hospital due to a staffing crisis.
All six inpatient beds have been temporarily transferred from Alston’s Ruth Lancaster James Hospital.
The Cumbria Foundation Partnership Trust, which runs the Alston hospital, plans to reopen the inpatient unit in September.
The nurse-led treatment service at Alston remains open. However, the 24-hour service has been reduced to weekdays from 8am to 4.30pm.
Dr Sara Munro, the trust’s director of nursing and quality, said there were staffing issues at other in-patient units in Cumbria. She explained: “We are now experiencing unprecedented shortages in qualified nursing staff of 40 per cent on five of our units in Cumbria, rising to 59 per cent at Alston.
“The quality and safety of services for patients is our overriding priority and clearly these staffing levels are insufficient to continue to operate all units safely. We recognise the significant disruption this will have for patients at Alston and we know that the community will feel let down, but we want to provide reassurance that we have done everything we can to keep the unit open.”
The trust said new nursing staff were due to take up posts ahead of the planned reopening of the in-patient unit at Alston next month.
In recent months, campaigners have been fighting to safeguard the future of beds at Alston, and other cottage hospitals in Cumbria, with health chiefs carrying out a review of services in the county.
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