Preparations in place to increase bed capacity

Three former care homes in Bridgend County Borough are being refurbished to provide extra bed capacity during the peak of the coronavirus outbreak.

 

The local authority is working with Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board to ensure sufficient beds are available to support the Princess of Wales Hospital.

 

These will be used to provide additional recovery beds so that the hospital can focus on treating patients who require acute medical care.

 

The local authority is working with the owners of three former care homes: Abergarw Manor in Brynmenyn, Ty Llynfi and Hyfrydol care home, both in Maesteg. In total around 150 additional beds will be made available.

 

The former Hyfrydol care home was only sold by the council a month ago.

 

The new owner, Family Crosspoint, which runs residential services for vulnerable parents and children at risk of going into care, bought the Maesteg building to expand its service, being fully booked at its existing centre in Bridgend.

 

Chris Bryan, property manager for Family Crosspoint, said: “Having only recently purchased the unit, we are keen to progress with the works required to allow us to expand our current offering.

“However, even though we have a backlog of families waiting to be cared for, we feel that the Covid-19 issue is more important and want to help as much as possible during the pandemic.”

The company has now offered the building to the local authority free of charge for the next six months, after which it will review the situation dependent on circumstances at that time.

Kerry Collier, director of Family Crosspoint, said: “Our residential centre provides safe and therapeutic services in order to create building blocks to help families develop lifelong bonds.

“We have seen a lot of demand for our services since we opened our first centre in October 2018 and look forward to being able to help more families once we are in a position to open in Maesteg.”

Meanwhile, Abergarw Manor in Brynmenyn is a former care home which has not been in use for the last few years.

The Caron Group now owns the building and has plans to open another care home on the site.

However, due to the outbreak of coronavirus, the company is providing the building free of charge to the local authority and using its own property team to help refurbish it.

Caron Group’s managing director Sanjiv Joshi said: “The Anwen Care Home and Treetops Residential Care Home are both homes we have in the surrounding area – our homes and staff are very much part of the community.

“This was the opportunity for us to support the NHS in this really, really difficult time. It’s a privilege to be showing our support for the community.”

Finally, Ty Llynfi is being provided to the council by the registered social landlord Hafod which has offered one of its empty buildings to the local authority.

Jas Bains, Hafod Chief Executive, said: “Improving people’s health is at the heart of everything we do and right now working in tandem with the NHS and local authorities to provide overflow health care is our duty.

“One of our key strategic priorities is to bring housing, health, social care and support together in partnership, and this is a prime example of that in practice.”

We are working closely with all three providers and our health board colleagues to coordinate this essential piece of work.

We are very thankful for the generous help and support we have received from businesses in the community - without them we would struggle to provide the necessary additional bed capacity for people recovering from coronavirus.

We plan to open and use these additional beds incrementally over the coming weeks

The Leader, Cllr Huw David