Hackney Town Hall

Hackney Council has announced that the Median Road Resource Centre will close on 31 March this year, to make way for new services to support people leaving hospital.

The move reflects the changing needs of patients and the desire of more people to recover from hospital treatment and be cared for in their own homes. Median Road offers a temporary home, providing intermediate care for those leaving hospital - which is a clinically led therapeutic service to aid recovery - and interim care, which is a social care service for those too frail or lacking in confidence to return home.

Following the closure of the centre, intermediate care will be provided by a new service, led by the Homerton Hospital and supported by the Council, called RICS (Reablement and Intermediate Care Service) which will provide intensive, therapeutic support to people in their homes, bringing together services into one team, and providing bespoke one-stop support for patients. The new service will provide a single point of access, and extended hours, in response to patient feedback. Interim care will be provided in one of the Council’s housing with care schemes, which will aim to build patients’ confidence and recovery in a supported, domestic setting before they return to their homes.

The Council is examining potential uses for the building, including a proposal for a medium term conversion into temporary accommodation for homeless families, but the Council’s intention in the long term is for it to become a residential care home, for which there is a real local need.

There are currently nine people staying at Median Road and there are discharge plans in place for all of them.

Cllr Jonathan Mc Shane, Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care said: ‘The closure of Median Road will allow us to provide better services for people leaving hospital, whether those are in their own homes, as part of the new Reablement and Intermediate Care Service, or in one of our housing with care schemes.

“It is sad to say goodbye to a facility that helped so many Hackney people over the years, and in its time was a trailblazer, and I want to pay tribute to everyone, past and present, who worked at Median Road. Now it’s time to move the service forward again to provide a sustainable, high-quality service for the future. In years to come, I hope that Median Road will once more play an important role in caring for older people in Hackney as a residential care home, which the borough really needs.”

A spokesperson from the Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “‘The new RICS service will be led by our clinicians and will ensure that patients get the highest standard of intermediate care to help them avoid admission to hospital where appropriate and to assist them in getting back home as quickly as possible when admission is unavoidable. The service has been developed in response to patient and staff feedback, and will focus on managing patients outside acute settings as much as possible, which is what the great majority of them want.”