'Sadness' as Melton's brain injury hospital closes
A specialist hospital in Melton Mowbray which treats and cares for people with serious brain injuries has closed down.
Priory Hospital Burton Park, on Warwick Road, was a 50-bedded neurorehabilitation service and the closure comes just a few months after it significantly improved its Care Quality Commission rating from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’.
Staff specialised in helping people with an acquired brain injury (ABI) or traumatic brain injury (TBI), including stroke, with the aim of enabling people to transition to longer-term community care.
The service also offered continuing care for patients with progressive neurological conditions, such as Huntington’s disease and early onset dementia.
The hospital blamed a drop in demand for services and a change in where patients were treated for the decision to close.
The hospital has had a challenging history since opening in 2014 – it was given poor ratings by CQC inspectors until the recent inspection, which recognised major improvements being made.
It was part of the Priory group, which a major independent provider of mental healthcare and adult social care in the UK, and the organisation said it was ‘with sadness’ that it had to be closed.
A spokesperson for Priory Hospital Burton Park told the Melton Times: “We have now closed our specialist acquired brain injury service at Burton Park due to consistent low demand, resulting from a commissioning shift to care for more people with a brain injury within the community.
"We have ensured close discussion with all colleagues, patients and their families and we have been working hard in recent weeks to ensure a smooth transition for all patients into appropriate alternative services.
"It is with sadness we close, as we are extremely proud of the team at Burton Park, who achieved a ‘good’ rating overall from the CQC following an inspection in November 2024.
"We are working with the team to support as many colleagues as possible to get jobs in other Priory services locally.”
The final CQC inspection was made in November when inspectors noted there were 12 patients being cared.
Their report stated: “At this assessment we saw how staff and managers had worked hard to improve the quality of their care and to bring about required changes. The service had made the improvements required to improve their overall rating to ‘Good’.”
An indication that the hospital wasn’t working to full capacity was given in this latest CQC grading.
The report found that only one of its three units was being used at the time.
Cleves was in use, it said, but Warwick unit was being used for staff training and Dalby unit had been de-commissioned and was only used for storage.
All of the hospital’s bedrooms were single-occupancy and had an en-suite bathroom with patients encouraged to personalise their rooms during their stay.
The Melton service accepted people with brain injuries from all over the country and staff worked alongside commissioners, from the moment they are admitted to giving service users an appropriate ‘step-down service’ in their home area.