Mental Health Unit Work Going Well
My poor old ticker missed a beat when I saw this item in the Echo, last week. After all, it isn't often that mental health gets a boost I thought. Unfortunately, reading on dashed my hopes that - perhaps - the promised new unit at Llandough was underway. As readers will recall, the new hospital ( to replace the Victorian asylum at Whitchurch ) should have been three years into the promised four year commissioning time. Sadly, not a brick has been laid.
The new unit is a £16.4m mental health unit near Bridgend, where groundwork is well underway for the low-secure unit at Glanrhyd hospital. The steelwork should be completed before Christmas, after which work on the floors may begin . Eventually the unit will have 28 en-suite bedrooms, replacing the out-of-date at Glanrhyd and Cefn Coed hospitals. [ Oh no ! not two hospitals into not one again - how many beds will be lost this time ? ]. There goes the ball-game again - another cost-cutting ploy!
The new home will be for patient detained under the Mental Health Act for a range of challenging behaviours including self-neglect, self-harm and aggression. It will also provide patients who may have previously had to receive their care in England, with the care and support they need closer to home.
Acting clinical Director for Mental Health, Gill Thornton said "The unit will provide modern fit-for-purpose ( ? )facilities for patients to recover and regain the independence to live at home" ( yawn ). This unit will be open in December 2014.
How they've got the nerve to call this a low-secure unit, beats me ! However, pity the poor patients stuck in Whitchurch hospital for another four years - Such are the NHS promises. R. W.
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