It is with a heavy heart that we announce that the Trustees of SJMT have had to make an extremely difficult decision regarding the future of Alexandra House and sadly, a decision has been reached to close the House.
Alexandra House was purpose built by SJMT as a nursing home in the 1980’s, and later converted to a residential care home. The service has provided a safe, caring environment for hundreds of people over 50 years and this has only been possible because of the fantastic staff that have worked at the House.
Over the past few years, national and local adult social care policy has changed. The priority has moved towards providing support and care in people’s own homes rather than in hospital or in residential care. This policy has had a significant impact on Alexandra House, as we primarily provide Local Authority Placements and has led to a lack of referrals, leading to increased voids and significant financial losses for the charity. These losses are no longer sustainable.
Our plan is to close Alexandra House before the end of March 2025. During this time, we will work very closely and intensively with residents and their families to ensure that we find a suitable alternative placement for them. We will also follow a formal process with our staff team, and where possible, we will seek alternative employment for staff within SJMT and also YGT wherever this is possible.
This is not a decision we wanted to make, but after thoroughly exploring a wide range of options, we have found no alternative. Whilst this will not be a priority for anyone at this time, we know that many people will in time want to know what will happen to the building itself when the service closes. SJMT will retain the building and our plan is, in time, to convert or redevelop the Alexandra House site to provide more alms housing as we do across the rest of the Olton site and other SJMT sites.
We are very sorry to have to share this news and we want to assure everyone that the team at SJMT will be here to support residents, families, and staff throughout this process.
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