September 16, 2020 4.29 pm This story is over 41 months old

Work to start on new women’s mental health ward

Better support alongside the hospitals

By Local Democracy Reporter

A currently unused unit near Sleaford is being transformed into a new mental health ward for women.

Ash Villa, at Greylees, is will get a £400,000 refurb starting September 28.

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust contracted Lindum to carry out building works, as the trust aims to reduce the number of patients travelling outside of the county.

The empty building will soon be a new mental health ward.

Out of area hospital care for mental health patients should be scrapped by March 2021.

The new centre will operate in conjunction with existing wards in Boston and Lincoln.

After initial assessment there, female patients can be transferred to one of Ash Villa’s 15 beds for treatment before discharge.

Chris Higgins, director of operations at LPFT, said: “The NHS has been in an unprecedented position over the last few months responding to the national coronavirus pandemic.

“This has had significant and long lasting impact on how the NHS and the Trust develop and deliver services now and in the future.

“We have wanted to eliminate the number of patients travelling for acute care for some time and coronavirus has magnified this challenge.

“Over the last two years we have had more females admitted to acute inpatient services than males and these additional beds will allow us flexibility across our entire adult acute inpatient services.”