St Luke's Therapy Centre

In the Michaelmas edition of the newsletter there was an article, from Jonathan Swann, about St Luke's Medical Centre. Plans were shared, and Jonathan's report from the initiative group gave a good flavour of the aspirations for a continuation of anthroposophical medicine and therapy, albeit outside the NHS. Since August there have been further developments, and on behalf of St Luke's Trust we wish to share these.

St Luke's Trust owns the Medical Centre, and from 1998 leased just over half the building to the Medical Practice, the doctors operating as a Partnership. This was a 25 year lease, and under the NHS 'cost rent reimbursement' scheme the Practice paid rent to the Trust (which was reimbursed by the NHS), and the Trust used this rental income (along with fundraising and room hire income) to pay the mortgage.

Turnover of doctors at the Practice was high, and the Practice's inability to retain doctors led to a critical situation when the two remaining partners wished to retire. Without managing to recruit new partners, either from salaried doctors within the Practice or from wider advertising, the Practice gave notice of closure to the NHS, and in September the Practice closed. The trustees, in common with many patients, experienced profound sadness with this closure, as it represents a non-reversible loss of NHS-funded anthroposophical medicine.

Faced with this closure, and with an impending breach of the lease from the Practice, the trustees were placed in a challenging situation. With an outstanding mortgage commitment, and aware of the critical financial risks facing us, the trustees needed to protect assets while promoting our charity aims.

The work of the initiative group, outlined in the August article, sought to secure the building for medical and therapy work. The trustees had a resolute determination to enable this work to continue, and have taken steps to enable this to happen.

We have re-financed our loan, from Aviva to Triodos Bank; greatly reducing our repayments. We have committed designated reserves from our residential accommodation fund, to converting one wing of the building (the old doctors' wing) to supported shared housing, in line with our charity objects. This housing will bring a further differentiation to the community impulse in Gannicox House (the Camphill community) and Whittington House (housing for the elderly). We will be redeeming a significant part of our loan, from these designated funds.

We have established sufficient space in what has been the 'therapy wing' of the Medical Centre building, in order to establish the new St Luke's Therapy Centre. All the existing therapists will have rooms in which to continue their work, and the team is expanding with the addition of at least four new therapists. The three doctors from the old Medical Practice who wish to continue, will have rooms in which to provide medical services. All practitioners have committed to take on tenancies for these rooms, and once formalities are completed the continuing viability of the building will gain greater security.

The renewed venture is about to start, and St Luke's Therapy Centre has new opportunities to explore. These include strengthening the Patient Therapy fund with the help of those wishing to develop wider community support; finding new co-operative working relationships, free of some of those habits which inevitably arise through usage over many years; and working to serve the medical and therapeutic needs of the community.

We have saved the building from financial collapse, set in place structures which we believe to be sustainable, and have a therapeutic and medical team who we wish to support to deliver anthroposophical medicine and therapies. The sadness of the closure of an NHS service, free at the point of delivery, remains; but we look to the future with realism and hope. We welcome thoughts and suggestions from you, as we move ahead.

Piet Blok and Philip Curwen

for St Luke's Trust