Bootham Park Hospital: Anger and upset mount as doors close today

The registration of Bootham Park Hospital will be withdrawn at midnight and all patients moved out after Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors raised serious concerns over safety risks.

Now a senior police figure has raised concerns about the closure of York's place of safety unit at the hospital, which opened last year at a cost of £400,000 but which has now closed without further notice.

Before it opened, North Yorkshire was the only county without a specialist unit for people with mental health problems who had been detained by the police, to avoid having to hold them in police cells.

Julia Mulligan, police and crime commissioner for North Yorkshire, said yesterday: “The most important thing at hand is making sure people in mental distress received the urgent care they need.

"But no question, the closure of Bootham is a real blow, not only to the members of the public who may need it at any given time, but also to all those who put so much time and effort into getting this service available in York in the first place."

Flashback: Pictured in the monitoring room at the 'Place of Safety' when it opened at Bootham Hospital: Police Inspector Bill Scott, PC Bob Thomson and unit service manager Jeff Whiley. Picture: David Harrison.

She said police would around the county look at examples of providing services in different ways and would work with colleagues to ensure York's facilities were back up and running as soon as possible.

She said other services would temporarily fill the gap left by the closure.

By today all of the patients remaining at Bootham will have been moved out - eight to Roseberry Park Hospital in Middlesbrough, two to Acomb Gables recovery unit in York and about 15 patients discharged home with packages of care to support them.

Some 14 additional staff will be redeployed to support them. The future of about 300 staff working at the hospital is in doubt.

Concerns had first been raised in September 2014, and NHS organisations had been required to make a series of improvements at Bootham Park Hospital.

Blame for the urgent closure of Bootham is being suggested by the NHS organisations involved.

The Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT), said local commissioners and NHS Property Services failed to meet deadlines in making required improvements to the hospital specified following a CQC inspection.

Chris Butler, left, and Julia Mulligan

Chris Butler, chief executive of LYPFT, said: "If those targets had been met, this would not have happened."

He said: “I very much regret having to put in place such changes so quickly. This has been driven by the delays on the interim improvements at Bootham Park and we have been depending on other parts of the NHS to deliver these improvements.

"We relayed our concerns about these delays to NHS regulators and the Secretary of State for Health and we fully support the call for an investigation into these recent events.”

However, Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said work completed since February 2014 at at a total cost of £1.76 million included a much improved elderly assessment ward which was moved to refurbished accommodation at Cherry Tree House, Heworth, and the removal of potential ligature points at Bootham Park Hospital.

NHS bodies dispute the causes of the problems

Michelle Carrington, chief nurse for the CCG, added: “Following concerns about service quality and safety, the CCG tendered the mental health and learning disability services contract. The contract, with a specification that was co-designed by service users, staff and members of the community was awarded to Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust and is scheduled to commence on Thursday 1 October 2015."

TEWV is due to take on the mental health contract tomorrow, however the key contract has not yet been signed by TEWV due to legal wrangling.

By this morning more than 1500 people had signed a petition on Change.org calling to "Stop the Closure of Bootham Park Hospital and Fund an Immediate Refurbishment".

One person wrote: "I am a staff nurse working on one of the acute inpatient wards at Bootham Hospital and today we shipped out our patients to out of area beds, away from family and friends, a fact that will have a massive impact on their recovery. Seeing first hand how frightened and vulnerable these people are. Everyone has a right to treatment in their own city."

• If service users, family members and carers have a question or a concern about the relocation of patients and provision of other services from Bootham Park Hospital, they should email Vale of York CCG on VOYCCG.PatientRelations@nhs.net or phone 01904 555 999.

THE mother of a patient due to be immediately discharged from Bootham Hospital said she is concerned her son hasn't recovered sufficiently.

The woman, whose adult son is being cared for in the facility following a relapse of a mental health problem, said her son will be checked regularly by a community health team upon his discharge. 

But she said he felt comfortable at Bootham Park Hospital, and feels strongly the facility should stay open for his sake and for many other patients in York. 

"Part of my son wants to be out and in his own home but he isn't really ready for it," she said, "It's rushing things and that's not good. 

"It's very concerning. I feel for all the patients. 

"I would do anything to keep that hospital open. It's such a waste of resources as they are such a great team. 

"I want Bootham Park to stay open, I don't think the building is a write off."

A NURSE working at Bootham Park Hospital has described the closure of the hospital as a "tragedy" - saying the maintenance of the building has been unnecessarily neglected. 

The nurse, who has about 30 years experience of working in mental health and asked not to be named, said the staff and patients have been left devastated by the closure. 

She told of a gradual deterioration of the building due to a lack of maintenance and of how two key wards had been closed with patients regularly being sent to out-of-area private beds costing as much as £500 a day.

"The cuts - the closure of the newly refurbished mother and baby unit and of ward three for intensive care - meant patients had to go into private care at great cost," the nurse said. "They wasted so much money and lost so many good staff.

"Staff are devastated. It is a hospital but it was at the heart of the community. Patients came back to us, it's reassuring to them, they look to us for guidance.

"It was a beautiful hospital and if they had done the essential works that needed to be done and spent the money in the hospital instead of shutting wards in favour of private beds this would never have happened."

While superficial work was done to improve the appearance of the hospital, basic maintenance, such as looking after the roof was not kept on top of. Despite this she said the hospital was clean and it was not necessary to immediately close the building, she said.

An open letter from four former nurses

IN an open letter to The Press four retired nurses have set out their objections to the closure of Bootham Park.

The consistently negative publicity about BPH really does need to be challenged. BPH hospital has given service to the people of York for over 200 years. It offers great beauty to service users and is set in peaceful grounds within the city and thus easily accessible to all.

At this point it is imperative that the observations of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), be challenged.

In February 2014 the CQC recorded BPH as unsafe and unfit for purpose. Leeds Partnership Trust are responsible for a multi-million pound contract and failed to ensure that work necessary to rectify this was completed. Had they done so the immediate closure of BPH would not have been considered necessary.

Alternatively, as Leeds Partnership Trust admit to being aware of delays to the planned work, why did they not make appropriate and timely plans for the provision of alternative care for service users.

On their most recent visit the CQC raised concerns about insufficient staffing numbers. But in their report of February 2014 they stated that required standards of staffing levels were met. Why therefore, in the latest inspection, had staffing levels been assessed as inadequate?

It is sad that so many valuable and experienced staff have left the York service. Perhaps this is because, since Leeds won the tender for York services,the organisation has been perceived to have a culture of blame and criticism.

Clearly this has had an impact upon continuity of patient care with staff employed on zero hours contracts and often living outside York were used to fill vacancies. This was at not inconsiderable financial cost as staff from Leeds were being transported by taxis to York on a regular basis.

It should be remembered that mental health in York has lost specialist services. Crucially, a purpose-built mother and baby unit, a special care ward for service users requiring more intensive support and a reduction in acute admission beds.

All of these losses have led to service users on occasion having to be cared for in hospitals many miles from their homes. This cannot be seen as anything other than detrimental to service users, their family and friends and to continuity in provision of care.

This of course will now be the case for the majority of service users as a result of the closure of BPH. 

Once again Leeds have failed to maintain this beautiful building. It is obvious that any building however new or old requires regular maintenance to ensure the integrity of its structure.

What assurance can Leeds give regarding the security of this historically important building and its contents following the closure?

It is noted that once again Leeds lay the blame for any failure upon other parties, in this case Vale of York Clinical Commissioning group (CCG) and NHS Property Services. If indeed these two organisations are culpable what action did Leeds take to expedite the required work?

Other than this the CCG and NHS Property Services must be held to account. Had Leeds acted in a timely manner the scandal of a closure within days would have been avoided.

The devastating impact of this upon service users, their friends, relatives and staff is appalling. It should be remembered that BPH has many functions, not only inpatient care but clinics and a range of other services for out-patients including a purpose built suite for the assessment of people who would otherwise be detained in police cells.

The people of York need to know, in exact detail, the plans for mental health services both immediate and long term.

We ask the people of York not to accept without question the CQC report and subsequent decisions and ask you to let your voice be heard.

• Ann Weerakoon Matron BPH (Retired)
• Sylvia Graves Ward Manager BPH (Retired)
• Jenny Bassett Clinical Lead Nurse (Retired)
• Isobel Wilson Senior Nurse and Bed Manager (Retired)