BRACKLEY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL 2020 TRUST Registered Charity Number 1185445
The BRACKLEY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL 2020 TRUST officially came into existence on Monday 23 September 2019 when approval was received from the Charity Commission and a registration number of 1185445 was issued.
The new building remains on schedule for completion by May 2020, and it is anticipated that it will open as a fully-functioning facility comprising the Brackley Medical Centre GP surgeries, Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust Community Services and the Brackley Community Hospital in July or August.
The building will provide medical facilities for all residents of Brackley as well as the surrounding villages that are served by the GP surgeries in Brackley. It is hoped that the facilities at the new hospital will be used also by patients from further afield within Northamptonshire: increased usage will bring increased funding and ever-increasing services to our growing communities.
The Trust is initially looking to raise £165,000 to fund a state-of-the-art X-ray machine and all public donations are welcomed, as are all fund-raising initiatives. If you would like to run an event to raise money for the new hospital, please do let Caryl Billingham, Chairman of Trustees, know on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and we will publicise it for you on our website and Facebook pages. The Trustees will support as many events as they possibly can in one way or another.
The final piece of the jigsaw for the Trustees of the new charity is to open its own bank account, something that could not be done until the Registration Certificate had been issued. In the meantime, any donations can be made to Brackley Hospital Trust which is keeping a separate column for monies received that are intended for the new facility. For further details please contact Paul Bennett, the Treasurer, on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The residents of Brackley and the surrounding villages kept the Cottage Hospital going for 25 years after it would otherwise have been closed. Please help now if you can to get the new facility fully established and operational as a magnificent 21st-century asset for everybody’s benefit – wherever you live.
September 2019
The phoenix is starting to rise from the ashes. Well, not exactly, but the new Brackley Community Hospital does at last have a structure at its new location off Northampton Road.
Back in 1990 the NHS dropped the bombshell that it planned to close our much-loved and well-respected Cottage Hospital. This caused a public uproar, and the then Mayor of Brackley, George Britchfield, was instrumental in setting up a charity, the Brackley Hospital Trust, that kept the hospital open for a further 25 years thanks to the overwhelming generosity of local residents through fund-raising, regular giving and legacies.
A “new” hospital was promised time and time again as the NHS went through regional and organisational changes and local campaigners were knocked back on each occasion. The intention of the trustees at the Cottage Hospital was to keep the facility up and running until such time as a replacement facility was in the pipeline. Sadly, that was not to be as staffing issues meant that the Cottage had to close its doors at the end of March 2015. The trustees have looked after residual funds since then with the intention of making a capital investment into the new building at the appropriate time.
Although the new Community Hospital will be an NHS facility, the building will also house the Brackley Medical Centre GP surgery. The building will be called Brackley Medical Centre and Brackley Community Hospital. At the moment, we do not know what the NHS will fund within the building or exactly what its “shopping list” will be; discussions are taking place to obtain the list of requirements as soon as possible along with indicative costs so that we know exactly what is required.
To this end, a new charity will be established. It will be called the BRACKLEY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL 2020 TRUST: this recognises that the facility will open in 2020 although ongoing support will be sought for many years afterwards. Many local groups and individuals are already organising fund-raising events and, for the time being, all money raised can be paid to the Brackley Hospital Trust where it will be separately accounted for. (The charity’s registered number is 1008835; the bank details are sort code: 09-02-22 and account number 10255416, and we can claim Gift Aid if you are a basic rate taxpayer. Please contact Paul Bennett, Treasurer, on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to discuss any aspect of giving). Establishing a charity takes some time and a lot of effort and opening a bank account is the last step in the process, hence the need to have a safe place for the time being.
It is important to note that money raised by and for the new trust will be used for the shared areas of the building – which includes not only the intermediate care beds but also consulting rooms, physiotherapy, secondary care, etc. These parts of the building will be accessible to all. Funds raised will not be used in any way for any aspect of the Brackley Medical Centre’s functions; that is an entirely separate entity.
The new charity will have nine trustees. The initial trustees have been selected for their knowledge, their expertise and their specialised skills, talents and contacts. There will be three Core Trustees who are all currently trustees of the Brackley Hospital Trust: Paul Bennett, Caryl Billingham MBE and George Britchfield. There will be three Community Trustees: Rosie Herring, Mark Morrell and Jacky Mortimer. There will be one trustee each to represent Brackley Medical Centre and Springfield Surgery, these have been nominated by the partners of the surgery but need not necessarily be a GP; the initial nominees are Dr Jill Leddy and Deena Tomkinson respectively. Finally, the Town Mayor of Brackley will be an ex-officio trustee so will remain on the board for the duration of his/her term of office: the current Mayor is Councillor Tony Bagot-Webb.
The Trustees will be grateful for all the help they can get; they view their principal responsibility to be a safe repository for funds raised, a sounding board for requests for funding towards capital expenditure and equipment and the body that makes grants to the NHS to enable them to equip the building to best suit the needs of the people of Brackley and the surrounding villages. We do not mind what you do to raise funds; we do not mind how you do it – all we ask if that you keep us informed. The world is full of busy people so let’s complement what one another does and not suffer from duplication of effort!!!!!
The building is due to be up and running by May 2020; time will go really quickly so let’s not waste a moment.
If you have any specific questions please feel free to contact Caryl Billingham on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
CSB/310519
Update on 31 August 2019
The application for the Brackley Community Hospital 2020 Trust to be formally recognised and registered as a charity has been submitted to the Charity Commission and receipt has been acknowledged. We now have to wait up to 40 working days for their response. Our fingers and toes are crossed.
