| Last annual budget | £63 million |
| Employees | 1237 (full-time equivalent, as at 31 October 2012). [1] |
| Chair | Antony Kildare |
| Managing Director | Martin Riley |
| Links | |
| Website | |
| Care Quality Commission reports | CQC |
Medway Community Healthcare is a Community Interest Company providing Community Health NHS Trust services to the people of Medway established under the Transforming Community Services initiative. It comprises the community services previously run by Medway Primary Care Trust.
Medway is a conurbation and unitary authority in Kent in the region of South East England. It had a population in 2014 of 274,015. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when the City of Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with Gillingham Borough Council and part of Kent County Council to form Medway Council, a unitary authority independent of Kent County Council.
Transforming Community Services was a programme in the English NHS which operated from 2008 at a national level and continued during the implementation of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Although the rhetoric of the programme was about improving the quality of community services the reality was mostly concerned with structural changes.
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In July 2012 the organisation stepped in to help rescue the Balfour Centre, a day centre for adults with physical and learning disabilities, in Rochester, when it was earmarked for closure by Medway Council to save money. [2]
Rochester is a town and was a historic city in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway about 30 miles (50 km) from London.
Medway Council is the local authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined.
As a social enterprise with an annual budget of £50 million in 2012, it can use its surplus to develop services and to invest in community projects; in September 2012 it offered £30,000 in awards to support groups who help people in the local community. [3]
It runs the Wisdom Hospice in Rochester which was awarded a grant of £200,000 from the Department of Health in April 2013 to improve the patient environment. [4]
Hospice care is a type of care and philosophy of care that focuses on the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill or seriously ill patient's pain and symptoms, and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs. In Western society, the concept of hospice has been evolving in Europe since the 11th century. Then, and for centuries thereafter in Roman Catholic tradition, hospices were places of hospitality for the sick, wounded, or dying, as well as those for travelers and pilgrims. The modern concept of hospice includes palliative care for the incurably ill given in such institutions as hospitals or nursing homes, but also care provided to those who would rather spend their last months and days of life in their own homes. The first modern hospice care was created by Cicely Saunders in 1967.
The organisation established a subsidiary, Gateway Assure, in 2012 to provide professional services to "private, public and third sector clients", including assurance services, business consultancy, risk management, training and executive coaching. It made losses of £518,273 during its first two years. [5]
It won a four year contract with a value of about £10.5 million a year to provide all NHS and council commissioned children’s community services in Medway, where it already provides adult services, in March 2018. [6]
