Fenwick Health and Wellbeing Centre

11/08/2023

FENWICK HOSPITAL SITE IS TO BE SOLD AT AUCTION

The League of Friends of Fenwick Hospital (LoFF) learned at their meeting this week that NHS England had decided not to return the hospital site to the people of Lyndhurst but, instead, to put the site up for auction on 19th September 2023. The meeting was also told that NHS England had offered to sell the site to LoFF for £850,000 if contracts could be exchanged before the auction date.

LoFF trustees expressed their regret at the decision, particularly as, without sight of the original Deed of Gift, they had been unable to establish a sufficient legal basis to challenge the NHS’s right to sell the site.

LoFF Chairman, George Dibben, said “Sadly, we do not have the funds to purchase the site at this price. We will not take part in the auction, but hope that we will be able to work with whoever buys the site to agree a way in which the hospital building can be preserved for the benefit of the people of Lyndhurst.”

A spokesman for Lyndhurst Parish Council said: “We are disappointed that the NHS is not willing to do the honourable thing by returning the site to the people of Lyndhurst. LoFF has our full support and we hope that any potential developer will understand the strength of feeling amongst Lyndhurst residents and will be willing to work with LoFF to secure a future for the hospital building that benefits the Lyndhurst community.”

11/04/2023

IMPORTANT NEWS

NHS England have signalled that it is their intention to list the site for public auction in the next few months.

This makes it even more urgent that the League of Friends of Fenwick Hospital (LoFF), working with Lyndhurst Parish Council, try to save for this much-loved local asset for the benefit of the residents of Lyndhurst.

Rather than let it be auctioned by the NHS to the highest bidder, LoFF are endeavouring to achieve a secure future for The Fenwick as a “community asset”. With this in mind, we are seeking the views of Lyndhurst Parish Council residents to help LoFF with their planning for the future use of the Fenwick as a Health and Wellbeing Centre.

So far a design, which retains the original Fenwick Hospital building as a Health and Wellbeing Centre, is being submitted the New Forest National Park Authority (NFNPA) Planners for their preliminary view. However, in the absence of substantial private backing, the Fenwick Health and Wellbeing Centre will need to be financially independent. To achieve this, LoFF’s development plan separates the land into three are as:

1. The Northern part of the site nearest to Pikes Hill to be sold for development of affordable housing for sale with homes of less than 100m2 area. This income will finance the development of the rest of the land.
2. The Day Centre together with the car park to the South to be developed as housing for rent, managed by a charitable body such as a Housing Association or Almshouse to accommodate key workers and local people
3. The original Fenwick Hospital building to be refurbished as a Health and Wellbeing Centre.

LoFF are determined that any development of the Fenwick be sympathetic to the residents of Pikes Hill, as well as supporting the needs of the village and local community. Our village already has a fantastic Community Centre, so Lyndhurst Parish Council have agreed to assist LoFF by carrying out a survey to identify services which will augment and not compete with what is available.

If this initiative is to succeed, we will need to have services provided at the Fenwick Health and Wellbeing Centre which you would use now and would still be of value in the future. Please let us know your thoughts about facilities and services, and we urge you to get behind this proposal.

Please respond to this post, or email fenwickhealth@protonmail.com

Send a message to learn more

25/03/2023

Dear LoFF Supporters
With considerable input from Paul Meacher, a LoFF Trustee, we have been progressing our attempt to retain the Fenwick as an asset for the people of Lyndhurst.
Finding partners to fund the building, replace SCiA and operate a Health and Well Being facility is proving difficult. A major impediment is the state of the buildings which if retained would require a continuing expense of maintenance. So, reluctantly we have accepted that we are now concentrating on the ‘new build’ approach. We will do what we can to try and retain some legacy from George Fenwick’s building.
The Lyndhurst Parish Council have commenced their local survey to investigate the current and future demand for a Health and Wellbeing centre on the site. Hopefully this process will lead to a more active engagement by local people in the future, as the facilities at the Fenwick will have been those chosen by them.
Financing the construction and operation of this Centre will require us to maximise the income from investment in the other building on the site. We anticipate that the need will be for affordable and/or key worker accommodation. This means a change from the approach we first outlined and, accordingly, we will be withdrawing that scheme from consideration by the NFNPA Planners. Instead, we will now prepare a scheme which works overall financially for the Fenwick site.
The legal and moral ownership issue is still under consideration. We await further advice from our lawyers.
The time pressure is still very much on us as NHS England have only delayed the auction without specifying for how long.
I hope this summary is helpful and thank you for your continued support and suggestions. For the moment I regret there are no tasks with which we need assistance but if you could respond to the survey request from the PC that would be most helpful.
Yours sincerely
For the League of Hospital and Community Friends (Fenwick Hospital, Lyndhurst) Charity Number 267393
Mrs Sylvia Dibben - Hon. Secretary

16/03/2023

Here’s an old photo of the Fenwick Cottage Hospital. Anyone know when it was taken?

09/03/2023

We are very pleased to confirm that NHS England have withdrawn the Fenwick site from the March auction for which we have to thank them.

This is only a temporary measure, but we are grateful for NHS England continuing to engage with us whilst we seek local support for possible alternative uses of the site.

At the recent Lyndhurst Parish Council meeting, we were pleased to receive continued support from the Council in our efforts, and they will assist us with canvassing the local community for suggestions and support. However, action on this will be delayed until after the May elections.

NHS England have a statutory duty to sell surplus assets for “best value”. That presents us with financial challenges: whatever future use the Fenwick site is put to has to be commercially viable and supported both physically and financially by the people of Lyndhurst and the wider New Forest community. We are asking people to consider not only what they would like to be available, but would they actively support the facilities on offer through participation and also contribution?

The original donation of the property to the people of Lyndhurst by George Fenwick had the objective of promoting the health and wellbeing of the people of Lyndhurst and its neighbourhood, as does our charity The League of Friends of Fenwick (LoFF). Health and wellbeing can be quite widely drawn, but it is extremely unlikely anything that is front line medical or requiring CQC approval will be viable due to the expense required in bringing the property up to 21st century standards.

We need to be looking to complement the other services already available in the village and not to compete with them. This could potentially include additional providers where there is an under provision in the village or surrounding area. We have to be mindful that this is not a high street location, so any users are almost certainly going to need independent transport to the site and any providers cannot rely upon footfall or seasonal trade.

Meanwhile, the LoFF are working with various professional advisors to consider what options are feasible for the site. The LoFF have some funds available to them to carry out investigative work and the volunteer trustees give their time to engage with the NHS and others.

If you would like to contribute your time or donate, please email fenwickhealth@protonmail.com All comments are welcome on this page or by email.

Please, if you have friends who are not on Facebook, tell them about this campaign and ask them to email us for more information.

11/02/2023

At short notice it was brilliant to see around 70 people this morning. Special thanks to St Michael’s Church and our local MP Julian Lewis. During the coming week we will contact those who have kindly offered to help and make a plan

10/02/2023

We hope to see as many of you as possible at the meeting in St Michael’s Church tomorrow morning at 10:30am.

In the meantime, very happy to share further support from our local MP Julian Lewis who will join tomorrow. Speaking to the Health Secretary Steve Barclay about the Fenwick this week. Thank you Julian!

05/02/2023

Public meeting to discuss way forward to saving Fenwick Health and Wellbeing Centre for future generations.

Saturday 11th February at 10.30 in St Michaels Church Lyndhurst.

Everybody welcome, if you are not able to join but would still like to be part of it please send us a message. Many thanks.

★★★★★ · Church

03/02/2023

Just a week on since the New Milton Advertiser & Lymington Times published the article on our vow to fight. We hope to announce the date for a meeting soon so we can continue to build on this important momentum:

The League of Friends of Fenwick Hospital has pledged to do all it can to stop the site being sold and bring it back into use for the community.

31/01/2023

Great to see that the Fenwick was rasied by our local MP Sir Julian Lewis in questions in Parliament yesterday. Please see full link below and text pasted for ease:

Sir Julian Lewis: From 2005 to 2006, there was a campaign within the NHS to close many in-patient beds in community hospitals. I was pleased by what the Secretary of State said earlier about beds in community hospitals having a role to play. In that connection, will he reconsider the future of the site of Fenwick Hospital in Lyndhurst in my constituency, where the in-patient beds were closed? The NHS is now proposing to sell it off, but I would have thought that, with a bit of imagination, such a site could increase capacity.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Barclay): We are encouraging integrated care boards to take ownership of individual decisions, rather than trying to make all the decisions centrally from Westminster, so that those closer to the ground and to the issues are in power to make the trade-offs. I am sure my right hon. Friend will want to have those discussions with the chair and chief executive of his ICB. There is a wider issue of how we make greater use of community sites, not least given the workforce pressures and different staffing ratios that they have, and that is absolutely the way we help to get more people out of hospital who are fit to leave.]

HEALTH – FENWICK HOSPITAL IN LYNDHURST - 30 January 2023 Sir Julian Lewis: From 2005 to 2006, there was a campaign within the NHS to close many in-patient beds in community hospitals. I was pleased by what the Secretary of State said earlier about beds in community hospitals having a role to play....

31/01/2023

Thanks again for your ongoing support and new followers. Our next move will be to hold a meeting of supporters in Lyndhurst on a Saturday morning. Does anyone have suggestions for a venue we could use?

29/01/2023

Thank you to all our new followers, we hope this group will help us galvanise support. Please do invite your friends so that we can pass and share information about the best way we can work together for our cause.