Bristol City Council is shutting its last remaining rehab centre for older patients who need care after leaving hospital before going home. Cabinet members are set to approve the closure of East Bristol Intermediate Care Centre to save money, with more than 25 all-female staff being made redundant or redeployed.
The service will be taken up by community healthcare provider Sirona at other sites. It comes less than a year after council leaders controversially shut South Bristol Rehab Centre.
Despite initial promises that employees could transfer to Sirona, which runs a similar service at South Bristol Community Hospital, that fell through and the carers were left in limbo for months before having to take either voluntary severance, redundancy or other jobs. The East Bristol centre’s fate will be sealed by mayor Marvin Rees’s cabinet tomorrow (Tuesday, May 2), following a decision at the budget-setting full council in February to cut the cost of running it altogether.
