Psychiatric Secure Units: Places (Hansard, 6 May 1983)

§ Lord Allen of Abbeydale
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, one permanent regional secure unit, providing 30 beds, of which 20 are currently in use, opened in November 1980 at St. Luke's Hospital, Middlesbrough. In addition, facilities at the Towers Hospital, Leicester; Langdon Hospital, Devon; Rainhill Hospital, Mersey; and Prestwich Hospital, Manchester, offering among them 160 beds, should begin to admit patients shortly.

§ Lord Allen of Abbeydale
My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for the information which I requested, disappointing though it is coming nine years after the Butler Committee submitted an urgent interim report recommending these units. I should also like to thank the noble Lord for the information he gave for which I had not asked, which looks distinctly more impressive. May I ask him two supplementary questions—and I know that he has been giving a great deal of thought to these matters. First, are the Government still committed to an overall programme of 1,000 places in the first instance; and, if so, when does he think the programme will be achieved? Secondly, do his plans envisage that when the units are available on a more substantial scale some worthwhile relief will be given to the special hospitals and to prisons?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's first supplementary question is: Yes, we are still committed in principle to achieving 1,000 places in regional secure units, and I hope that by the end of 1985 about 600 places will be available in such units. As the noble Lord is aware, these units are designed as a medium-secure facility between the special hospitals, on the one hand, and the psychiatric hospitals in the National Health Service, on the other. Certainly when they are fully in use they will provide some measure of relief to both.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether the reason why some beds at St. Luke's Hospital are not in use is because there is not an adequate number of trained staff? Before the other units open, will the Government train more staff for this specialty?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the noble Baroness is right when she says that the reason why some beds are not in use at St. Luke's is that there is not yet a sufficient number of staff available. This is a new venture within the National Health Service, and therefore it is not surprising that we have not yet been able to obtain all the staff which we want for the programme; but recruitment is proceeding, and so is some training.

Baroness Faithful
My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister what has held up the opening of the regional secure unit in the Oxford region, since plans for it were being discussed nine years ago?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I think that staffing problems were the principal difficulty with regard to the unit to which my noble friend refers. I have it in mind to visit that particular facility shortly to see the problems for myself.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that according to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and figures which were given just the other day, at the last count on 30th March the number of mentally disordered offenders in our prison system had increased for the first time since 1977, and that this is a matter for great dismay considering that the noble Lord took pride in appearing before the all-party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Committee last year and 273 stating that considerable reductions had been effected as a result of facilities being opened in the National Health Service? Has not the money which was earmarked for this purpose in the National Health Service been spent by regional health authorities for other purposes, and is that not one of the reasons why we are not making greater progress in reducing the numbers of mentally disordered prisoners?

§ Lord Trefgarne
No, My Lords, the noble Lord is not quite right in that. The money which was allocated to the National Health Service specifically for this purpose has, by and large, though not exclusively, been spent on interim secure units, rather than on the permament facilities which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, was asking about. As for the position within prisons, a great many of the mentally disordered prisoners to whom the noble Lord refers are probably not sufficiently ill for detention under the Mental Health Acts to be justified, and therefore they have to be detained in prisons.

§ Lord Elwyn-Jones
My Lords, if I may use the expression of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, may I ask how many mentally disordered persons there are now for whom, if other things were equal, permanent psychiatric secure units ought to be available?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I do not know the precise answer to that question because it would depend on which of the patients could be certified under the mental health legislation. Naturally, I do not have that figure in front of me, but I could try to find out and write to the noble and learned Lord.