A message from James Duncan, Chief Executive
CNTW’s Board has now made the decision to move our acute adult assessment and treatment service from Yewdale Ward in Whitehaven to additional beds at the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle. I want to share with you how and why this difficult decision has been made.
For several years, Yewdale Ward has faced lots of challenges that have made it hard for us to provide safe and effective inpatient care there.
Last year, we told you about our proposal to move inpatient services currently provided on Yewdale Ward to the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle. Over a four-month period we talked to a lot of people at a wide variety of events across West Cumbria. We also shared an online survey, which received 1,197 responses.
Listening to people via this engagement process was important. We wanted to explain why we were proposing to make this change, and make sure that we had considered all the possible impacts, so that we could respond to your concerns as honestly as possible.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts with us through the survey and at those events. We have seen and heard how strongly people feel about the need for good-quality, safe mental health services in West Cumbria which help people to recover and live life to the fullest.
We understand that lots of people are worried that moving this inpatient service from Whitehaven to Carlisle will make it harder for people to get help and recover from mental health problems, because they will be further away from their local community.
We agree that people should get support and treatment as close to their home as possible. Friends, family and local community are absolutely vital to people’s wellbeing and recovery.
However, if someone is seriously unwell and needs to be admitted to hospital, we have a duty to provide the best possible inpatient care, so that they can get well enough to go home as soon as possible. This is sadly not possible on Yewdale Ward.
We have been clear from the beginning of this process that despite our best efforts over several years, we have not been able to find a realistic way to overcome all of the challenges which affect the quality and safety of the care we can provide on Yewdale Ward. (You can read more about these challenges in our updated FAQs below.)
I want to reassure you that we are working hard to improve local support so that fewer people need to go into hospital at all. We are working with our partners across the health and care system to make sure people are only in hospital as long as they need to be, and get the right support so they can go home as soon as they’re ready. And we’re doing everything we can to support the families and carers of people who need to be admitted to hospital outside their local area.
We believe that the launch of the Hope Haven project will make a big difference to people in Whitehaven, Copeland, and around west Cumbria. Although the Hope Haven building in Whitehaven needs to be refurbished before it opens to the public later this year, the project has already begun providing support in the local community. (Visit the Hope Haven Facebook page to find out more.)
Hope Haven is not a replacement for Yewdale Ward or any other inpatient service. But we believe that this radical new way of working, which brings several organisations together to give each person the support they need to thrive, will reduce the number of people who need to be admitted to hospital in the first place.
Now that this decision has been made, there is lots to do, and there are a number of conditions set by the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board that must be met. More detail on these is provided in the FAQs. We will be working with each person who is currently being cared for on Yewdale Ward, and their families and carers, to support them so they are ready to be discharged, or make plans to move them to another suitable ward. We will not rush this process, and I expect that the move to Carleton Clinic will not happen until July 2025 at the earliest.
Finally, I want to thank the staff at Yewdale, who do fantastic work, often in very difficult circumstances. I am pleased that most are planning to stay with us at CNTW or within other NHS services locally, and we will be supporting them with this.
I know that you may have some questions about this decision. Please take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions, below, which provide some more detailed explanations.
James Duncan, Chief Executive
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the challenges to providing safe and effective care at Yewdale Ward? Why can’t you fix these problems and keep the ward open?
Staffing
Whitehaven is in a rural, isolated area. It is difficult to recruit to critical staff roles, particularly consultant psychiatrists, with the right training and qualifications to work on Yewdale Ward. This is a problem we have faced for several years.
We have recently been able to increase the number of nurses and Allied Health Professional staff (such as physiotherapists) at Yewdale Ward.
We also use temporary staff from agencies, and staff who are usually based at the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle, to make sure there are enough staff on the ward to deliver care day-to-day, including cover for short term sickness.
However, we have not been able to recruit a permanent consultant psychiatrist to the ward. This has been a problem for many years, despite our best efforts to recruit doctors to work permanently at Yewdale.
We have tried several different things to recruit the right staff, including:
- International recruitment, to relocate qualified staff from overseas to the area.
- Offering financial incentives to new staff.
- Ongoing recruitment campaigns.
We currently rely on support from locum (temporary) medical staff to ensure compliance with the Mental Health Act. There is only limited support available from on-call doctors. It also means we are also not able to host Junior Doctors to train on the ward as we cannot provide adequate medical supervision for them.
Patients and their families and carers receive a poorer service on Yewdale compared to our other wards, because they cannot have face-to-face meetings with doctors or senior medical staff and the ward can only admit patients at certain times and not on weekends.
For example, when people are detained on a ward under the Mental Health Act, they must be assessed by a Responsible Clinician. However, because we have not been able to recruit a permanent consultant psychiatrist to Yewdale Ward, we rely on remote contact with Responsible Clinicians based at other wards. People who are detained on Yewdale can often only speak to their Responsible Clinician via phone or video call. This does not meet the high standard of care we want to provide. A recent CQC Mental Health Act reviewer visit also raised concerns about this.
Relying on temporary staff means patients and their families/carers often don’t have contact with a consistent member of staff (known as ‘continuity of care’). It is also very expensive, therefore not financially sustainable.
Restrictions on admissions to improve safety
In June 2023, to improve safety we had to introduce restrictions on when patients can be admitted onto Yewdale Ward. Yewdale Ward can currently only receive pre-planned admissions or transfers before 3pm on weekdays.
There are processes and assessments which must take place within 12, 24 and 48 hours to safely admit someone to a ward. These require senior medical staff to be available. Because we have been unable to recruit a permanent consultant psychiatrist to Yewdale Ward, we can only admit patients during times when we know we can get support from temporary medical staff.
Although these restrictions improved the ward’s safety temporarily, this is not a long-term solution because it does not allow us to make the best use of these beds and our limited resources.
Local people who need an urgent, emergency admission often can’t be admitted to Yewdale Ward because of these restrictions. Of the 13 people who on average are on Yewdale in a given day, only 6 or 7 of those are from West Cumbria. There are usually 10 people from West Cumbria on wards elsewhere across the Trust.
Isolation from other specialist mental health wards
In a psychiatric hospital where there are several wards on the same site (like the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle), each ward can call upon the support of other staff who are experienced in a wide range of mental health care. This is important in an emergency, when an incident occurs, or if a ward has unexpected staffing issues.
As a standalone ward, Yewdale Ward cannot draw upon this kind of support, because there are no other mental health wards nearby at West Cumberland Hospital.
Nursing staff at a general hospital like West Cumberland Hospital are Registered General Nurses (RGNs). The nurses working on specialist mental health wards like Yewdale Ward are Registered Mental Health Nurses (RMNs). These two types of nurses receive different training. In particular, our RMNs and other staff are specially trained in preventing and managing violence and aggression from people in distress, due to the nature of the care we provide. This is vital for safely responding to incidents. Most general hospital staff are not trained in this.
In a psychiatric hospital we can also provide a full range of support and care to ensure that people receive the right therapeutic support. This is not possible on an isolated unit.
Wards that are isolated from other similar services or the rest of their organisation are also at significant risk of developing ‘closed cultures’. The abuse at Whorlton Hall, Winterbourne View, Mid Staffordshire Hospital and other services have highlighted the extremely damaging effects a service with a closed culture can have on people. You can read the CQC’s guidance on the risk factors and impacts of closed cultures here.
Ward environment
Yewdale Ward is on the West Cumberland Hospital site. This hospital is run by North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (NCIC), not CNTW.
Yewdale Ward needs a lot of maintenance and a significant upgrade to be fit for purpose. It is also the only adult acute assessment and treatment unit run by CNTW where men and women are cared for together on the same ward. This does not offer people the privacy and dignity they need. There are also greater risks of sexual harm taking place on a mixed-sex ward. National guidance is clear that like if people need to be admitted to hospital for mental health assessment and treatment, they should be cared for in single-sex accommodation.
Over the past four years there has been a lot of work to improve other parts of West Cumberland Hospital, which is run by NCIC NHS Trust. We have been pleased to see this investment in facilities in West Cumbria for both patients and staff at the hospital.
However, even if all the necessary upgrades were made to Yewdale Ward, it would not resolve the other issues affecting the safety and quality of the care we can provide there. It would be very difficult to remodel Yewdale Ward into single-sex wards, and this would also make the unit harder to sustain from an operational, staffing and financial perspective.
Instead, we have secured investment in improving and increasing the number of beds available at Carleton Clinic, our specialist mental health hospital in Carlisle.
If some of these issues have been going on for several years, why are you only acting now?
Over the past few years, we have introduced temporary measures (such as temporary / remote staffing, and restrictions on admissions – see above) to keep Yewdale Ward running while we explored options which might potentially allow it to remain open and provide safer, higher-quality and more effective care.
Sadly, as described above, no realistic ways have been found to resolve these challenges.
The current measures we’ve taken to mitigate safety and quality concerns while we tried to address this issue are not sustainable long-term.
It is now more important than ever to make sure that we use our resources well to provide the best, safest possible care.
How has this decision been made, and by who?
We engaged with the public and key stakeholders during October 2024 to January 2025, to explain the challenges being faced and what we were proposing to do.
Listening to people via this engagement process was important. We wanted to make sure that we had considered all the impacts of moving the service, so that we could mitigate against as many of these as possible.
A formal ‘case for change’ was presented to CNTW’s Board of Directors for consideration in February 2025.
We have met regularly with the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) throughout this process, and presented our formal ‘case for change’ to the ICB in April 2025. Following this, the ICB confirmed their support for our proposal subject to a number of provisions relating to ongoing oversight. This includes working closely with our partners in the ambulance service, a commitment to continual engagement with the local Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and ongoing assurance provided to the Integrated Care Board on quality impact for services and patients. The ICB also require formal receipt of the response from the local Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, that there are no outstanding issues following the engagement undertaken by the Trust.
On 30 April 2025, CNTW’s Board of Directors agreed to begin planning to move our acute adult assessment and treatment service from Yewdale Ward in Whitehaven to additional beds at the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle. In making this decision, the Board considered all of the feedback received from the engagement, and also all of the ongoing safety and quality concerns.
CNTW’s Board have made this decision in line with national guidance and frameworks which we are required to follow:
- In 2024, NHS England launched the National Inpatient Quality Programme, which sets out clear requirements for mental health inpatient services. These included the need move away from providing services on isolated units.
- The 2025/26 NHS England planning guidance states that providers must reduce unwarranted variation in service quality, and take tough local decisions when services need to change.
How have you taken people’s feedback into consideration in this decision – what impact has the engagement process had?
The engagement process during October 2024 – January 2025 was an important opportunity to:
- Help people understand the challenges Yewdale Ward faces, and what we have done so far to try to address those challenges.
- Hear and reflect on people’s questions, thoughts and different perspectives and ideas.
The engagement process highlighted where we needed to explain some things better. For example, we learned that we needed to do more to help people fully understand the challenges faced at Yewdale Ward, and why we are unable to resolve them.
There has been a lot of support for our proposals to change our model of care in West Cumbria, particularly improvements to community support. But we also heard a lot of concerns about the impact of moving inpatient services from Whitehaven to Carlisle.
We agree that people should get support and treatment as close to their home as possible. Friends, family and local community are absolutely vital to people’s wellbeing and recovery.
However, if someone needs to be admitted to hospital, we have a duty to provide the best possible inpatient care, so that they can get well enough to go home as soon as possible. This is sadly not possible on Yewdale Ward.
We have been clear from the beginning of this process that despite our best efforts over several years, we have not been able to find a realistic way to overcome all of the challenges which prevent us caring for people safely and effectively on Yewdale Ward.
Although Yewdale Ward is more local to people in West Cumbria than the Carleton Clinic, we do not think it is right that the standard of care our staff are able to give people is lower on one ward than another.
Will there still be enough mental health inpatient beds in our region to meet demand?
In short, yes. We have invested in providing new inpatient beds in Carlisle and Newcastle. And we’re working hard on various programmes to reduce the number of people who need to be admitted to hospital in the first place, and to help people to be discharged sooner when they are ready to come home.
At the moment, there are 16 adult acute mental health assessment and treatment beds on Yewdale Ward, and 20 of these beds at Carleton Clinic in Carlisle. (That’s 36 in total in Cumbria.)
Yewdale Ward typically has 13 of its 16 beds occupied. On average, only seven of the beds on Yewdale Ward are occupied by people living in West Cumbria (with the rest usually being occupied by patients from elsewhere in Cumbria or the North East).
12 more beds have recently been added at the Carleton Clinic. This brings the total there from 20 to 32. These new beds will provide the adult acute assessment and treatment service that is currently provided at Yewdale Ward.
Once this change is complete, there will be 4 fewer inpatient beds in the Cumbria area. But there will be an overall increase of 2 beds across the whole area CNTW serves, because 6 more beds are being added at St Nicholas Hospital in Newcastle. (These will be open by Summer 2025.)
And Hope Haven, the new wellbeing hub which has launched in Whitehaven and surrounding areas, will open 4 new short-stay flats later this year. These will be for people who need intensive, short-term support with their mental health to avoid them needing to be admitted to hospital. (This project is part of a national pilot to provide early intervention and support in the heart of local communities.) There are also plans to make better use of 5 similar short-stay beds on Lowther Street, Whitehaven. However, it’s important to note that these do not provide the same level of intensive assessment and treatment as beds in inpatient wards.
We are also working hard, alongside other health and social care providers, to reduce ‘delayed discharges’ from hospital. This means making sure things are in place so that people can leave hospital as soon as they are ready. This lets patients to move smoothly onto the next step in their care, and means more hospital beds are available for people who need them.
In July 2024, the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) published their Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Inpatient Quality Transformation Plan. This plan highlighted that ‘delayed discharges’ are a challenge across the whole healthcare system. However, the ICB confirmed that experts agree that setting up more inpatient beds is not the solution to this problem, as people should only stay in hospital beds for as long as is needed.
Instead, the ICB and service providers (like CNTW) are focused on
- better early intervention and home treatment, so people can quickly get the right support without needing to go into hospital, and
- better support when they are discharged, if they do need to go to hospital.
What is the difference in the care someone will get at the Carleton Clinic compared to Yewdale Ward?
National standards state that if people need to be admitted to hospital, then they should be looked after in modern, high-quality wards that provide single-sex accommodation.
At the Carleton Clinic, we have two adult acute assessment and treatment wards. These wards are single sex (one male and one female ward), ensuring people’s dignity, privacy and safety.
These two wards have been newly refurbished. At the Carleton Clinic, inpatients can receive physiotherapy and take part in activities in dedicated sports facilities. They also have access to outdoor spaces, and can take part in gardening or nature therapies as well. Access to these facilities can be very important to someone’s treatment and recovery.
There is a full medical and multi-disciplinary team, with staff available on-site 24/7, seven days a week. (Recruitment into senior medical roles has historically and currently been much more successful at the Carleton Clinic, and we expect this will be supported even more with the development of the new medical school in the local area.)
As the services at Carleton Clinic are fully staffed, there are no delays or restrictions on when we can receive admissions. We can admit people to our acute inpatient beds at Carleton Clinic on a 24/7 basis.
Carleton Clinic is also home to our inpatient services for older adults and people with Learning Disabilities. Because several different services are based at the Carleton Clinic, there are more opportunities for teams to share and learn from each other, creating an ‘open culture’.
Wards can also call upon each other to respond to an incident or provide cover, with a wide range of Registered Mental Health Nurses (RMNs) and other specially trained staff on-site.
All of the above means that as a result of moving our acute adult assessment and treatment service from Yewdale Ward to the Carleton Clinic, people will be less likely to need to spend as long in hospital, and more likely to get better and more therapeutic treatment while they are there, with better outcomes in the longer term.
What will happen to patients currently being cared for on Yewdale Ward?
As part of planning for the move, all patients currently being cared for on Yewdale Ward will be fully assessed. We have also worked with local advocacy organisation People First to engage directly with patients on Yewdale Ward about their thoughts and preferences during the engagement period.
We always aim to discharge people as soon as they are ready, so that people only stay in hospital for as long as they need to. We work closely with the local council and other service providers to enable this.
Anyone who still needs to be in hospital will be transferred to another suitable ward within CNTW. Decisions will be made case-by-case, based on what is best for each person.
We will work with patients, and their families and carers, to ensure all patients have a personalised transition plan which will include transport arrangements and support where necessary.
What will happen to staff currently working at Yewdale?
The staff at Yewdale Ward are valued members of our team, and have worked in difficult circumstances for some time doing their best for their local community. They have vital skills and experience which we do not want to lose from the local area.
Last year, we met with staff to explore each person’s preferences about where they could continue working if the inpatient service was moved.
Wherever possible, we are supporting staff to
- continue working for CNTW in our community services in West Cumbria,
- transfer to NCIC to work at other services within West Cumberland Hospital,
- or relocate to Carlisle or the North East to continue working in CNTW’s services there.
Where staff are moving into different jobs in CNTW (e.g. from inpatient to community roles), we will support them.
Where staff wish to relocate to a suitable job in CNTW outside West Cumbria, we will cover their relocation costs.
We are aiming to avoid any compulsory redundancies.
Where will people living in West Cumbria go if they need to be admitted to a mental health ward?
When someone needs admitting to a mental health inpatient ward, they are triaged, and their case is discussed by our Enhanced Bed Management Team. This team always aim to admit someone into the most appropriate inpatient bed available. They take into consideration where someone usually lives, as well as other factors such as what specialist care and treatment they need. They may be admitted to the Carleton Clinic in Carlisle, or another hospital in the North East or elsewhere.
At the moment, 60% of inpatients from West Cumbria are cared for in Carlisle or the North East. So, many people will not see a change when our acute adult assessment and treatment service moves from Yewdale Ward to the Carleton Clinic.
At CNTW, we usually do not have any patients on ‘inappropriate out of area placements’ (where someone is admitted to hospital outside their local area, and it is not in their best interests). This is the result of a lot of work over the past few years to improve our processes, and we hope to be able to continue this.
How will you ensure people being cared for far away from home maintain contact with their family, carers, friends and loved ones?
As we already do across the Trust, where patients have to be admitted to a hospital away from their local area, we will provide or pay for transport for their families, carers and loved ones to visit them.
How will you support people being cared for far away from home to prepare for discharge and transition back to their community?
People’s transition from hospital back to their local community – which may be some distance from the ward – is carefully planned and managed.
When patients return home from an inpatient ward, they are supported by our local Community Services and Crisis Team.
In West Cumbria, the newly launched Hope Haven will also enable us to provide better, more joined-up community support. It will offer people personalised help with everything from housing issues to medication monitoring, from several local organisations working closely together, as well as support in a crisis.
Why aren’t you waiting to see what the impact of the new Hope Haven service is before you make this change?
Last year’s announcement of funding from NHS England for new community mental health hubs presented us with an exciting opportunity to work with local partners to develop a new approach to providing care in West Cumbria. The recently launched Hope Haven project offers support in the heart of the community that helps people stay well, and enables more people to get through a crisis without needing to go into hospital. While the Hope Haven building in Whitehaven is undergoing some refurbishment before it opens to the public, the project’s community and outreach support has now begun. This includes regular drop-in sessions and one-to-one support. (Visit the Hope Haven Facebook page to see what’s on offer.)
Over time, we do expect the improved early intervention and community support offered by Hope Haven to result in less people needing to be admitted to hospital. However, this change to the provision of our inpatient services is needed urgently, and is not dependent on Hope Haven having any effect on demand for beds.
Our model of care and support is intended to ensure that, by working closely with other organisations, we can support people in the community to stay well and avoid crisis.
However, there will still be a need for in-patient support for people who are very unwell and need intensive care and support. We need to ensure that when people need a hospital bed, it is in the best possible environment, with the best staffing support, to enable people to be supported to recover quickly and return to life within their own community.
There are ongoing quality and safety concerns at Yewdale Ward. So, now that work to add 12 more beds at the Carleton Clinic is complete, it is important that we are ready to start work to move the service from Yewdale Ward to a safer, higher quality environment at the Carleton Clinic as soon as possible.
Are you making this decision to save money?
We are moving our acute adult assessment and treatment service from Yewdale Ward to the Carleton Clinic because, despite our best efforts, we cannot provide a service on Yewdale Ward that meets the high standards of safety and quality that people deserve.
However, all parts of the NHS are being asked to make significant savings, and this is a factor in this decision.
At the moment, to keep Yewdale Ward running we have to spend around £2 million a year more than the budget we are provided with to run it. This £2 million is mainly spent on paying for temporary medical staff to cover vacancies, which is very costly. This is not financially sustainable.
Moving the service to Carleton Clinic will immediately save this money, because we do not face the same struggles with recruiting senior medical staff in this area.
Bringing inpatient services for Cumbria together onto one site at the Carleton Clinic will also result in economies of scale and better value for money.
We will be spending some of the money saved on supporting people to travel to visit people who have been admitted further away from their local area. We will also be supporting some staff relocation costs.
However, the NHS is being asked to make significant savings this year, and most of the money saved will contribute to the savings we need to make. This is in line with the 2024 National Mental Health Inpatient Quality Transformation Programme and Commissioning Framework for Mental Services, which stresses that providers must put efforts into “redirecting resources from poor quality, and outdated inpatient provision towards the community.”
How will this decision affect other mental health and emergency services in Cumbria? (E.g. other NHS services, Ambulance, Police, and charities / the third sector.)
We have engaged with our partners across the health and care system throughout the process of making this decision, including the police and ambulance services, and we will continue to do so.
We work closely with Cumbria Police to help them ensure that mental health-related calls get an appropriate response from the right agency, through the ‘Right Care, Right Person’ approach. Specialist mental health services being provided from one site at the Carleton Clinic will also benefit our colleagues in the Police and Ambulance services as they will only need to provide a specialist response to one centralised site.
We are also working closely with, and providing funding to, our partners in the third sector to enable more early intervention and crisis support, particularly through the Hope Haven project. We hope this will also reduce pressure on the emergency services.
Copeland has one of the highest suicide rates in England. What are you doing to address that and improve mental health services in West Cumbria?
As many people know, Copeland has one of the highest suicide rates in England (ONS Census 2021).
We know that at the moment 75% of people who die by suicide in Cumbria have never had any contact with CNTW’s services.
It is crucial that we make it easier and quicker for people to get help in their local area, whether that be from CNTW or from another organisation. We need to work closely with other services, so people get help earlier, before reaching a crisis point. And it needs to be help that’s right for that person, their life and their needs.
This is all part of what’s called ‘Community Mental Health Transformation’. This is one of our biggest priorities, and we’re following national guidance from NHS England and the NHS Long-Term Plan. We want to make help and support much easier to access. We want a better, quicker response to what local people need. And we want people to have a better experience, and get better outcomes, when they are supported by our services.
To do this, we have developed a new ‘model of care and support’. This is our approach to how we will provide services. It is based on these key principles:
- Working more closely with Primary Care (GPs, pharmacies, etc.) at a local level.
- Improving how quickly people can access our services.
- Making sure the treatments we provide are based on the best evidence.
- Identifying people’s problems earlier, and helping them sooner when things get worse.
- Supporting people to recover and live well in their local community.
- Offering alternatives to hospital admission.
- Making sure that if someone does need to be admitted to hospital, inpatient care is effective and purposeful.
We are working with other health and care providers in Cumbria on all of these things.
The Copeland area is also one of six places around the country which have been given funding by NHS England to pilot neighbourhood mental health centres. We’re leading this work for Copeland, working with Cumbria Health, Everyturn Mental Health, Home Group, iCan Wellbeing Group CIO, The Well Communities CIC, and Whitehaven Community Trust. The project is called Hope Haven.
Hope Haven is already providing support around Whitehaven and Copeland – you can visit the Hope Haven Facebook page to see what’s on offer. Later this year, the main Hope Haven hub will be opening on King Street in Whitehaven town centre. The project brings together a range of services and staff from the NHS, health and care services, and the third sector. People who are struggling will be able to walk in and get specialist support, with no referral criteria or waiting list. It will also offer help and advice with issues which often affect people’s wellbeing, like housing, money and employment. There will be support for the families and carers of people who are unwell. Hope Haven will also provide four self-contained short-stay (up to 2-3 days) flats for people who are seriously struggling with their mental health, and need more intensive support for a short period to stay safe and get back on their feet, without needing to be admitted to hospital.
Hope Haven is being funded by NHS England for two years initially. The Trust does not see this as a pilot, but a way of working that will become a fundamental part of our new model of care and support in the longer term.
Is the new Hope Haven meant to be a replacement for Yewdale ward?
No. Hope Haven will offer support to people in the community, but it is not a replacement for the specialist and intensive assessment and treatment an inpatient ward provides.
But we believe this way of working will mean that more people get the right support earlier on, so they don’t reach a crisis point where they need to be admitted to hospital.
Won’t the four short-stay flats at Hope Haven face many of the same challenges as Yewdale Ward does now?
Hope Haven’s four short-stay flats (sometimes known as ‘hospitality beds’) will provide support in the community for around 2-3 days (48–72-hours), for people in crisis who can be safely supported there, and their situation stabilised.
It is a preventative service aimed at helping people who need support but not necessarily a hospital admission at that time. It will also provide an external place to deliver short-term support to those people facing a crisis related to their housing or social surroundings.
If someone is not improving with support in the flats, requires longer-term support or cannot be safely cared for there, then the team will arrange further support, including admission to a specialist ward at Carleton Clinic or elsewhere if needed.
Similarly, if people present with more severe, complex or longer-term needs, they will still be admitted to a specialist inpatient ward instead where they can receive care from staff from various wards with training in managing violence and aggression, a full medical and multi-disciplinary team, and a range of therapeutic activities/services.
These short-stay flats will be managed by Home Group, experts in providing these types of support and crisis services across the country. They have a wealth of experience in safely supporting people with serious mental health concerns and other complex needs outside of hospital.
These flats have been designed so that they can provide privacy and dignity during a person’s 48-72 hour stay, providing a positive environment to aim to prevent further escalation in a person’s situation.
What is going to happen to the Yewdale ward building (J Block at WCH) – will it be used for something else?
The building housing Yewdale Ward belongs to North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, and they will decide on the best use of their estate in the future.