Mental health unit faces closure

Source: Healthcare Exec

Date :18/12/2007 09:26:49

A pioneering hospital that treats people with personality disorders is to under NHS reforms.

The Henderson Hospital in Sutton, Surrey, part of the Community of Communities, a quality network run by the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI) is a therapeutic community where residents live for up to a year and help to run the service.

Dr Rex Haigh, Project Lead for Community of Communities said that the decision showed the "short-sightedness” of the Government's plans for the NHS.

“…this decision means that whose need is most severe (that is patients who cannot be helped by the outpatient Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and are not helped by medication either) are having the only treatment that might help them taken away," he said. “We need more beds for severely abused and traumatised people, not less."

NHS, DOH policy

Peter Houghton, chief executive of the South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, said the decision by the trust's board to close the hospital- one of only three of its kind in the UK - was "regrettable" saying that it reflected the reduction in funded referrals and income from commissioners, and the expectation that this reduction will continue.

“This is a result of the primary care trust commissioners investing in other areas of personality disorder services locally, in line with recent Department of Health policy guidance. The trust can no longer afford to subsidise the hospital at the expense of other services," he said.

The hospital celebrated its 60th anniversary this year.

December 18, 2007