Fears for loss of mental health beds at hospital

Mental health campaigners fear up to 15 hospital beds for highly vulnerable patients could be lost as part of an estates shake-up.

The Gazette understands that long-standing plans to sell an old Victorian wing of St Martin’s Hospital in Canterbury could result in the closure of Cranmer Ward.

In 2017, government watchdog the Care Quality Commission raised concerns about the ward, which is contained within the building earmarked for ‘disposal’ and cares for older people suffering from conditions such as dementia.

If lost, it is believed patients will be transferred to the hospital’s newer Samphire Ward, an acute ward for men aged 18 to 65 struggling with severe conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or psychosis.

Campaigners fear the move, if it were to go ahead, would place even greater demand on acute mental health beds at a time when services are already under strain.

It was revealed in 2017 that Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, which runs St Martin’s, spent a staggering £12m sending patients to private hospitals across the country in the 12 months up to January 2017 owing to bed shortages.

Some patients were forced to travel as far as 300 miles away to Darlington in County Durham.

With a total of 69 beds for adults under-65 at the St Martin’s site in Littlebourne Road, the effective loss of Samphire Ward would mean a reduction in capacity of more than 20%.

Across all of Kent, there are only 165 acute beds for this age group and a further 12 in psychiatric intensive care units.

A spokesman for the East Kent Carers Council, which campaigns on behalf of carers of people with mental health difficulties, said: “When somebody is psychotically ill to the point of hearing voices or seeing things that are not there or having suicidal thoughts, or harming others, they should be hospitalised for assessment, medication and care.

“This would effectively lower the younger adult bed stock to 150. To do this at a time when the mental health service is being promised expansion in terms of monies and facilities would be highly sensitive and dangerous, in our view.

“About seven years ago the primary care trust and KMPT decided to close all beds at Ashford and Margate and concentrate capacity in Canterbury, Dartford and Maidstone.

“Since then we have had years of misery and pain with not enough beds within Kent and clients being hospitalised to far flung corners of England, meaning that carers - because of the distances and expense - have not been able to visit.

“We never want to experience those circumstances again.”

Mark Kilbey, the director of Canterbury-based mental health charity Take Off, who was himself hospitalised at St Martin’s for several months in 2005, said: “Although we are told no decisions have been made about ward closures, any discussions which include this as an option are very concerning.

“There are several rumours circulating and it’s a lack of consultation and transparency in the process which is causing problems.

“Those who need essential secure inpatient care for a serious psychiatric illness are being failed by the lack of beds at the current level of provision.

“Any reduction will be disastrous for patients.”

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‘Those who need essential secure inpatient care for a serious psychiatric illness are being failed by the lack of beds at the current level of provision’