| Castlebeck open for business during Christmas and New Year |
Posted: 18th Dec 2007 |
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To help our NHS and Social Services customers with their service planning during the holiday period, Castlebeck has arranged for there to be senior clinical and nursing staff available throughout this time.
We are also making certain that we have sufficient staffing to provide for emergency admissions over the holiday period, should this be required. This will include senior members of nursing staff and the necessary Psychiatric and RMO input for emergency assessments/admissions.
Please find below details of current placement availability across our services. We will be updating this information for you on a weekly basis over the next month.
Our customers are advised that if they require placement assistance during this time to please contact David Maynard on 07795 211796.
Seasons Greetings.
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Castlebeck Placement Availability -
3rd January 2008
North East:
Hollyhurst, Darlington – 1 place
Chesterholme, Hexham - 1 place
Midlands:
Croxton Lodge, Leicestershire – 2 places
South West:
Winterbourne View, Bristol – 2 places
Scotland:
Monroe House, Dundee - 1 place
Referrals are also being accepted for our new step down service due to open in Dunblane in the New Year.
Newly registered by the Healthcare Commission last month :-
Wast Hills Lodge (4-place Aspergers service), Kings Norton, West Midlands
Oaklands (5 extra places in our new Lifespan service), Hexham, Northumberland
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| Newbus Grange to Feature on CNN |
Posted: 22nd Jun 2004 |
The sensory garden at Castlebeck's newest hospital, Newbus Grange, is to feature in a worldwide broadcast on CNN throughout the summer.
The CNN programme, 'Design 360' will feature different types of garden and their design. The episode featuring Newbus Grange includes an interview with award-winning designer Paul Cooper, who designed the sensory garden at Newbus, and who considers it his best work to date. The programme also includes the garden of Pierre Cardin, in the somewhat sunnier town of Cannes!
Design 360 will be shown on Saturday 3 July at 4.30pm, and on Sunday 4 July at 7.30pm. It will be repeated on alternate weekends throughout August and September.
For further information about Newbus Grange, please visit our Centres page. |
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| NHS Mental Health Services criticised |
Posted: 18th Dec 2003 |
The NHS is struggling to provide proper care to many patients with mental health problems, a watchdog says. The Commission for Health Improvement said staff shortages and unsuitable and unacceptable facilities are to blame.
Its report suggests children and older people are most likely to be denied the care they need.
Health Minister Rosie Winterton said the government is committed to improving mental health services but acknowledged it may take time.
'Significant challenges'
The report found that while some mental health trusts are performing well others are still facing what it described as significant challenges.
It said priority tends to be given to adult mental health services at the expense of services for children or older people.
In addition, the situation is worse in Wales than it is in England. Services in Wales are less developed and have older, more institutional systems of care, the report says. It said many trusts were struggling because of a high demand for hospital beds. Others were facing problems because of a lack of management capacity and poor information systems.
Jocelyn Cornwell, acting chief executive of CHI, said the situation would only improve if more staff is recruited and facilities are improved. "Some mental health trusts are performing well but many still face significant challenges.
"Although they are moving in the right direction, their ability to further develop the quality of their service is hampered by serious staffing problems and poor infrastructure."
Health Minister Rosie Winterton welcomed the report."This report from CHI highlights important issues such as specialist staff shortages and facilities that need improvement.
"These are some of the reasons we have embarked on a radical programme of modernisation to improve patient access to effective treatment, raise standards and tackle variations in services around the country.
"Despite the significant progress and good practice identified by CHI we recognise the challenges and we know that more needs to be done to reverse decades of neglect in mental health services.
"Radical reform will take time but I am confident our ten-year ambitious programme of modernisation will deliver better services."
However, Liberal Democrat health spokesman Paul Burstow criticised the government's record on mental health services. "Decades of under-investment and neglect have left mental health services struggling to cope with staff and bed shortages, over-stretched budgets, and crumbling buildings," he said.
"Ministers have claimed that mental health is a priority for them, but services for younger and older patients are still missing out.
"It is appalling that after six years of government, Labour are obsessed with draconian legislation but fail to deliver mental health services fit for the 21st century."
Paul Farmer of Rethink suggested a lack of money is to blame. "Service users and carers tell us that services are at best patchy and at worst being shut down because money meant for frontline services is not reaching them."
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: "This report reveals the profound failure of the NHS to provide the fundamentals of mental health care: beds, doctors, nurses, and wards which are not squalid and rife with violence and drugs.
"Until basic care is offered in conditions of safety for staff and patients, any apparent improvements will be cosmetic and fail those in need."
Gordon Lishman, director general of Age Concern England, said: "This report highlights the double whammy older people face in the NHS.
"Mental health services themselves are low priority, and services for older people in mental health trusts are under-resourced and inadequate."
Source: BBC online Dec 03
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