- INVESTIGATIONS have been taking place into suspected suicides of three
people treated by a mental health team at Rugby's Hospital of St. Cross. North
Warwickshire PCT, which oversees the Crisis Team at the hospital, launched the
probe after being notified by the police of the deaths over the past 12
months. The Crisis Team, based at the Linden Unit, offers 24-hour help for
members of the community who may require support for mental health
difficulties.
Rugby Advertiser 11
May 2006
- Unit may close if move goes ahead. THE Linden Unit at St Cross
Hospital could be closed down as part of an overhaul of Rugby's mental health
services. Health chiefs want to move it to the Caludon Centre in Coventry
where they say facilities are better and where more staff can be based to
provide better round the clock care to patients. The review was sparked by a
critical report into how mental health services are provided in the wake of
the fatal stabbing of young mother of three Colette Lynch by her partner Percy
Wright in February 2005. An action plan drawn up by the newly formed Coventry
and Warwickshire Partnership Trust, which now runs all mental health services,
also includes more treatment of patients in their own homes rather than
relying on them to go to the hospitals and moving all mental health services
from various bases around Rugby to under one roof. The Linden Unit is on the
second floor of a former Victorian building that was converted in the early
1990s to provide a 16 bed adult mental health inpatient and assessment and
treatment unit. Trust chief executive Sandy Taylor said the layout did not
make it easy for staff to observe patients which could lead to them being at
risk. A number of the bedrooms and associated support accommodation are also
hidden away within the network of corridors, and the overall environment is
also generally poor with dark corridors and limited therapeutic space which is
a stark comparison to the other inpatient units operated by the trust at the
Caludon Centre in Coventry and St Michael’s in Warwick, Mr Taylor added. The
changes were put out to public consultation yesterday (Wednesday).
Rugby Observer 13 July 2007
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