§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will detail the setbacks that have occurred in Oxford and the North-East Thames area in establishing regional secure units.
§ Sir George YoungOxford regional health authority and Berkshire area health authority produced plans last year for a secure unit for mentally handicapped patients at Borocourt hospital on condition that the whole hospital environment was improved in parallel. Resources for these general improvements will not become available for several years and together with problems of staffing and taking account of the protests and anxieties of local residents they led me to suggest that the regional health authority delay further planning work on a permanent unit at Borocourt for up to two years, thus enabling problems to be reexamined and resolved and local uncertainty to be relieved. Meanwhile, I asked the health authorities to develop and introduce interim arrangements for patients needing secure accommodation so that the experience gained could be transferred to more permanent arrangements in due course.
As regards the mentally ill, Oxford regional health authority maintain that patients who require secure facilities are, and will continue to be, managed within psychiatric facilities in the region.
The arrangements which exist in Oxford region for caring for both mentally ill and mentally handicapped patients in secure accommodation are to be evaluated. In North-East Thames the regional health authority originally proposed to concentrate RSU facilities at Friern hospital. This proposal met with opposition and the regional health authority is now considering a scheme whereby each psychiatric hospital in the region would provide a service for its own catchment area with Friern in addition providing a training and advisory service for the region as a whole.