'This isn’t giving them an option – it’s shoving them out the door'

Exclusive: £1.4m-a-year Royal Edinburgh Hospital ward to close amid fears for long-term mental health patients

Photo by Daniil Onischenko on Unsplash

The rehabilitation ward at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital is where patients with some of the most deep-seated mental health problems are cared for.

Some have been in hospital for more than 10 years and many have been judged “beyond the point of medical need” but remain unable to live independently.

The 15-bed ward, which costs £1.4m annually to run, is set to be closed in favour of a new ‘care in the community’ plan, offering patients support to live semi-independently outside the walls of an NHS building.

Around £900,000-a-year will be reinvested in a new supported living facility, resulting in £500,000 annual savings.

But the decision has sparked fears for the patients, amid claims they are being ‘forced out of the door’ and concerns many will struggle without the level of support on offer on a hospital ward, resulting in greater pressures on the NHS further down the line.

The Edinburgh Integrated Joint Board, which manages integrated health and social care provided by NHS Lothian and the city council, says it has been left with little choice but to act.

Besides the need to “address human rights concerns” over excessive hospital stays, the board has been warned the Royal Edinburgh consistently operates above its safe capacity, posing “profound safety risks for patients.”

There is also the issue of the pressure which extended hospital stays, so-called ‘bed-blocking’, places on hospital services. It is a “profound and disproportionate” problem in Edinburgh, which has more than half of all delayed discharge patients in Scotland, a report to the joint board spells out.

Increasingly this means patients are being diverted to other hospitals, including the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, the report says, creating “unsustainable pressures” on hospital staff.

The solution which the joint board has settled upon is to discharge patients to their own homes with appropriate support. That means closing the long stay ward at the Royal Edinburgh and moving the patients to a supported living development.

But the decision to move them to a new supported living facility has caused deep unrest within the health and social care service.

Concerns that are of course fueled by the current plight of community-based mental health services in the Capital. With the EIJB making enforced cuts totaling £28.6 million to ensure it can meet the statutory demands on it to provide for care for those “most in need”, it is ill-prepared to offer additional support to those adjusting to life in the community.