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The Eliza Palmer Hub

18th April 2024

Since opening in 2019, the Eliza Palmer Hub has seen a significant shift in operating conditions including high levels of inflation, national staff shortages within care, and very significant rises in interest rates. We have, of course, continued to provide a high-quality nursing and care service but while our costs have gone up, regretfully, increases in funding have not kept pace with rising costs. As a small provider, it is simply unrealistic for us to continue to absorb these costs. Therefore, The Whiteley Homes Trust has reached an agreement to sell the Eliza Palmer Hub to Kingsley Healthcare. The exchange of contracts for this has now taken place and we expect the sale to be completed within the next few months.

We were faced with two options: one to close the care home and the other, to sell it as a going concern.

Our preferred option was to sell to a provider who shares the Trust’s high standards and values in order to protect future access to care for The Whiteley Homes Trust beneficiaries. This option also ensures current residents of EPH can remain in their homes and our staff can continue to provide the care that our residents have been used to, without the loss of jobs.

The sale will also enable us to improve the Trust’s financial position, which will positively impact on our future sustainability. With this in mind, the Board and Leadership Team have accepted an offer from Kingsley Healthcare to continue the operation of EPH as a going concern.

Kingsley Healthcare

Ensuring continuity of the Whiteley ethos, alongside high-quality nursing and care, have been central to our search for a bigger provider to take on the Hub. This is where Kingsley Healthcare comes in – a family run business that shares the same values as us. They have an excellent reputation, operating 34 UK care homes all rated good or outstanding by the Care Quality Commission. It is also worth noting that Kingsley Healthcare is ranked as one of the UK’s top 20 large care groups by carehome.co.uk. Clearly, as Kingsley Healthcare is a large provider, staff will benefit from more extensive training and development opportunities, which is good news for residents and staff.

The Board and Leadership Team would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone for their continued hard work and commitment and we look forward to working closely with Kingsley Healthcare as part of the new Whiteley future.

Staff, residents and relatives of the Eliza Palmer Hub have been informed and we will continue to post updates as we progress through this transition period.