CARSTAIRS IN £5m SECURITY SHAKE-UP
BY SALLY HIND s.hind@dailyrecord.co.uk SCOTLAND’S State Hospital is preparing for a £5million overhaul of its security system - just weeks after we revealed a patient slashed a prison guard’s throat and attacked three nurses.
Carstairs chiefs put the contract for the psychiatric facility out to public tender yesterday.
The move comes after reports of a faulty alarm system and equipment in the Lanark hospital and a string of concerns raised over staff and patient safety by whistleblowers.
We told last month how patient Ewan MacDonald lashed out at a warder and nurses after being transferred to Carstairs from jail.
He slashed the prison guard using blades hidden under his fingernails – an attack that earned him the nickname Scissorhands – and assaulted three nurses two weeks later, amid claims they were ordered to go into his room without protective gear.
MacDonald, 24, had been in jail almost constantly since the age of 16 for offences including attempted murder and serious assault.
A source said: “As soon as the door was opened, he viciously attacked three members of staff.”
Carstairs said a “critical incident review” was launched to probe the failings.
It emerged after whistleblowers highlighted a catalogue of concerns over the running of the hospital for the most dangerous psychiatric patients in Scotland.
The Record also told how staff feared for their safety after killer Neil Cumming, who stabbed his wife 36 times, was prescribed Viagra to use alone in his cell, leading to other patients demanding the sex drug. A new safety system was installed during a £90million rebuild about six years ago. But a whistleblower claimed wireless personal alarms regularly go on the blink and back-up devices – a pager and a radio – are “useless” when nursing staff are under attack.
A spokesman for the hospital said they are “committed to maintaining a modern, effective, and robust security infrastructure that enables the safe delivery of patient care within a high secure environment”.