Plans to close mental health centre in Essex
By Catherine Walker
Plans to close The Weymarks specialist care centre in Laindon are being put into place by South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust manages the mental health services for this area.
NHS spending cuts are beginning to take hold and the trust needs to save £7.6million this year although health chiefs say that the closure of the centre would have happened even if Whitehll had not cut its annual budget. They say that moves to treat more mental health patients at home were already in place.
‘This is the path we were headed towards.’ said Andrew Pike, chief executive of NHS South East Essex and NHS South West Essex. ‘While the savings have to be made, I would not want anyone to think that is the sole motivation behind this.’
‘We believe this will result in better care for patients.’ he added.
Most of the affected patients will be sent back to their own homes or moved to residential care homes if the trust’s plans go ahead.
The only remaining facility will be the ten-bed Churchview centre in Laindon whilst Weymarks and Brentwood’s Firs periphery House, Lyndhurst and Bramleys will all close.
The patients will receive regular visits from the trust’s community rehabilitation team. The team will increase its staff from six employees to 21 and they will help patients to readjust to public life.
According to Mark Tebbs, NHS South West Essex commissioner the vast majority of the patients had been in a stable condition for some time. He said ‘none of them could be considered a danger to the public.’
Patients and their families will be consulted before the trust makes a final decision.
‘Patient care is still at the heart of everything we do.’ said Dr Patrick Geoghegan, the trust’s chief executive. ‘Patients who currently reside in the rehabilitation beds have been assessed, or are in the process of being assessed, under the continuing care criteria by social workers in the trust and Essex County Council.’
Dr Geoghegan added ‘Patients will be found care packages based on their own individual clinical needs, which must come first.’
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