New Boston mental health ward gets clean bill of health

Plans for a near £35 million new mental health ward in Boston have been supported by Lincolnshire county councillors.

The authority’s Health Scrutiny Committee was told of Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust’s plans to build a 19-bed unit on the former Norton Lea site on Wednesday.

LPFT is currently upgrading the adult acute mental health inpatient provision in both Lincoln and Boston, with a previously-approved city site on the Peter Hodgkinson Centre due to open in April next year.

In 2017, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said the use of dormitory style (shared) sleeping accommodation on mental health wards were no longer suitable in mental health ward environments, as they were not conducive to privacy, dignity or recovery.

Chris Higgins, LPFT’s Director of Operations, said he was “excited” by the project.

“When we first opened 2012 there were no state of the art inpatient environments for people with acute mental illness, fast forward a few years and they’re quickly outdated and things you didn’t see at the time now seem obvious.

“When you’re particularly probably at your most vulnerable and maybe paranoid worried we put people in shared dormitories where there’s only a curtain between you and the people next door which just seems odd in terms of recovery… it’s not conducive for recovery.

“This new development really offers that, it’s a great opportunity to put the right environment both from our sleeping arrangements, but also those social spaces.”

How the new site would be laid out.

Councillor Mark Allen suggested the committee couldn’t do anything but support the proposal and hoped it would bring significant improvements.

Councillor Tom Smith called it a “brilliant” proposal.

“It’s something I hope that is rolled out across our other hospital sites, when financially available and the sooner that we have more facilities like that, the better it will be for people who need that acute support.”