26 beds axed as elderly mental health care wards move to Clatterbridge

Oct 8 2008 by Carrie Catterall, Bromborough and Bebington News

TWENTY SIX beds will be axed as wards for elderly mental health patients move to Clatterbridge next year.

The refurbishment and extension to the Springview Unit is expected to be completed by October 2009 with the relocation of the existing wards from St Catherine’s Hospital in Birkenhead following shortly afterwards.

This £2.8 million project will include healing rooms and gardens as well as single room occupancy.

But the bed numbers in Springview will reduce by eight for the more severely ill patients and reduce by eighteen for so-called “functional” mental health patients compared to the current Balmoral Ward.

The move was welcomed last week by members of the Cheshire County Council and Wirral Council Joint Health Scrutiny Committee, which oversees the work of the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP).

The Trust provides mental health services across the borough and Wirral.

Councillors were told the Trust had considered using St Catherine’s as the in-patient site for mental health services in Wirral but that it had concluded existing community services would have to be relocated to accommodate wards.

The Trust agreed to fund £1.4m of the cost of the scheme and approached Wirral PCT for match funding.

New Brighton councillor Sue Taylor, a member of the Social Care, Health and Inclusion Overview and Scrutiny Committee, said: “On the whole Springview is a better facility and it’s a good move.

“We are disappointed we will need to lose beds but if that is the price to pay for more modern and better facilities then that’s what we have to do.”

As a result of reduced bed numbers many patients will now be cared for in their own homes by a “Crisis Home Treatment Team” after a pilot scheme reduced the number of hospital admissions by 75%.

Councillor Dorothy Flude, chairman of the committee, said: “I am very pleased that significant investment by CWP and by Wirral Primary Care Trust at Springview will address current clinical issues and achieve high standards of privacy and dignity for older people with mental health problems.”