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Clergy to sell hospital despite £3m revamp
THE hard-up Church of England has decided to sell off its unique St Luke’s Hospital for the Clergy, in Fitzroy Square, despite having spent £3million on a major refurbishment.
The hospital’s trustees are to concentrate on meeting the healthcare needs of clergy “closer to their parishes”, a report in the Church Times reveals.
The hospital, which is a charity, was founded in 1892, and celebrated its centenary in its current location with a service at St Paul’s Cathedral last year.
The 16-bed hospital provides exclusive free treatment to Anglican clergy, their spouses, widows, widowers, and children, members of religious orders, overseas missionaries, licensed theological students and their families.
It has 224 honorary consultants, who come from all faiths, and who operate without charge. It also relies on voluntary donations.
The chairman of trustees, Patrick Mitford-Slade, said the hospital needs to “stay relevant” and change the way it operates. He added: “It has become clear that running a very small hospital in central London is no longer the best way to meet the modern healthcare needs of clergy.
“But there is also a financial imperative for changing. Running a small central-London hospital for the benefit of very few clergy is becoming increasingly expensive, and no longer offers value for money for our donors.
“Thanks to the shortage of private hospital beds in central London, we can now get a good return on the investment we have made in modernising the hospital in recent years, and be in a position to do a better job delivering healthcare to the clergy on a local basis.”
The hospital’s chief executive, Merrick Willis, said the hospital needed to focus on the “best interests of the clergy, and not bricks and mortar in London”.
Most clergy undergo day surgery at St Luke’s, but Mr Willis said the NHS is able to offer this more quickly now, without the inconvenience of clergy having to travel to London.
He added that St Luke’s was limited in the range of operations it could offer, as it did not have high-dependency or intensive-care facilities.
Mr Willis said the trustees were still consulting among bishops about how they could best serve clergy locally.
“Since we reopened last year, the number of clergy coming through was not anywhere near as many as before,” he revealed. “Sometimes we had as few as five operations a week, which is just not cost-effective.
“I’m sure a lot of people will be sad, but the message has to be the aim is to do something more appropriate and better in the future.”
Mr Willis hopes to facilitate the continued employment of the hospital’s 40 staff, and confirmed that an exclusivity agreement had been signed with the London Clinic, which also has charitable status. This makes it the preferred bidder for the sale. |
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