Dorset needs the best mental health care for its young people

16th November 2018

A healthcare chief executive has stressed how vital it is to have the right mental health services in Dorset after hearing about a local girl who had to be sent to Manchester to get the right care.


Dorset HealthCare boss Ron Shields has responded to the girl’s parents after they described driving nearly 28,000 to see their daughter during her stays in psychiatric intensive care units as far afield as Manchester, Kent and Surrey.


The trust’s existing Pebble Lodge inpatient unit, which is rated outstanding by the CQC, doesn’t have enough beds for the Bournemouth and Dorset young people who need them.


A planning application to expand the facilities for young people at Dorset HealthCare’s Alumhurst Road site in Bournemouth is being considered by the Bournemouth Council planning board on Monday (19 November).


In a letter to the Trust board, the local couple said: “If only our daughter could have walked through a door to the right care, instead of being terrified as she entered a secure ambulance to face a six-hour journey, what a difference that would have made to her.


“If we were on a lower income, had other young children, and no friends to lean on, we would have had long gaps where we just could not see our daughter, or get to know the professionals caring for her.


“Her stays in remote PICUs would have been longer and her mental health slower to stabilise. The pain and anguish was tough enough in our fairly positive circumstances – I think in a different situation my own mental health would have suffered too.”


Mr Shields said: “Hearing about what this family has been through just confirms how much we need this. It’s simply not acceptable that a young person should be separated from their loved ones and from the healthcare teams that know them best.


“We have national funding in the balance - £8 million to build the unit and £3 million a year to run it. We stand to lose this to other parts of the country if the application is not agreed.


“We owe it to the young people of Bournemouth and Dorset to provide the excellent care they need much closer to home – it’s what they deserve. I have assured this family and others in their situation that we are doing all we can to make this happen.”

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