§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many private psychiatric hospitals for children there are; what are their names; and how many children were accommodated in them at the latest available date.
§ Sir George YoungPrivate hospitals providing nursing care or other medical treatment for mentally-disordered patients are required to be registered under the Nursing Homes Act 1975 as mental-nursing homes.
At 31 December 1978, (the latest date for which central returns are available), there were in England 59 registered mental nursing homes, only one of which (the Regents Park nursing home, London, NW8) indicated that a specific provision of 28 beds was made for the treatment of children under 16 suffering from mental illness. In the case of St. Andrew's hospital, Billing Road, Northampton, it is known that in December 1979 facilities were available for the treatment of children under the age of 16, although the number of beds for children in this age-group was not specified.
Of the remaining 57 registered mental-nursing homes, the 1978 returns indicated that 53 did not make provision for the treatment of children under 16. In the other four instances information on the use of beds by age was not specified. There is no central collection of data on the number of patients accommodated in registered mental-nursing homes.