18 December 2020

Due to a number of health and safety concerns identified with the building at Mossley Hill Hospital in Liverpool, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has been working to identify alternative accommodation for their services based at Mossley Hill. This includes their learning disability inpatient service - Specialist Treatment, Assessment and Recovery (STAR) Unit.

Following a further safety issue with the accommodation at Mossley Hill in recent weeks, Mersey Care has taken the decision to accelerate these plans and move staff and service users from STAR Unit to other accommodation before Christmas. 

In light of the planned transfer of our Cheshire and Merseyside staff and services to Mersey Care during 2021, Mersey Care has approached us to request our support, and we have explored how we can work together to facilitate this move and identify alternative accommodation for STAR Unit service users and staff.   

We have together agreed the best option for staff and patients is for service users on STAR Unit to move to Byron Ward, our learning disability assessment and treatment inpatient ward at Hollins Park in Warrington, and for Mersey Care to take over the management of Byron Ward.

This decision has been made in conjunction with NHS England/NHS Improvement, our clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and Cheshire and Merseyside Transforming Care teams.

This means service users on STAR Unit will move to the currently not-in-use beds on Byron Ward, and existing Byron Ward staff will be seconded to Mersey Care from 23 December. STAR Unit staff will move to Byron Ward and will continue to be employed by Mersey Care. Byron Ward will also be registered to Mersey Care for Care Quality Commission (CQC) purposes from this date.

This will create one CCG commissioned learning disability assessment and treatment unit and multidisciplinary team at Hollins Park, serving the populations of both trusts.

We are currently engaging with staff, services users and families to ensure they are kept fully informed and have an opportunity to ask questions and raise any concerns.

Our priority is to ensure that the transfer of Mersey Care’s STAR Unit staff and service users to Byron Ward, as well as the secondment of our Byron Ward staff to Mersey Care, is as safe and smooth as possible, and minimise any disruptions to patient care.

Thank you to everyone who is working hard to make the move happen so quickly to ensure STAR Unit service users are able to enjoy Christmas safely in their new accommodation on Byron Ward.