A brand new £23 million inpatient unit has opened in Poole, the first phase of expanded and improved facilities to support people across Dorset struggling with severe mental issues.
Chaddesley House, at St Ann’s Hospital in Sandbanks, has been purpose-built by Dorset HealthCare to increase capacity and enhance services for local men and women needing 24-hour care and intensive treatment.
The building, which will be ready for patients from the end of May, is the first fruit of a £70.6 million investment in Dorset’s mental health services as part of the Government’s New Hospital Programme (NHP). A new high intensity unit for children and young people will open in Bournemouth this summer, while further improvements to the St Ann’s site will be introduced over the next couple of years.
Dorset HealthCare Chief Executive Matthew Bryant joined NHP Strategy Director Darren Crook for the opening ceremony, alongside representatives from the Dorset Mental Health Forum and developers Kier Construction, and St Ann’s staff.
Local MPs Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole), Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East), Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) and Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) also attended the event.
Work on Chaddesley House began two years ago, and the two-storey unit will host two specialist adult wards. The first floor Chine Ward will relocate female patients from a listed building elsewhere on the site which limits modern development, offering improved facilities and increased capacity (14 beds).
On the ground floor, Haven Ward – divided into eight-bed male and five-bed female psychiatric intensive care units – will also add to bed numbers on the site, as well as making space elsewhere at St Ann’s for extensive refurbishment and modernisation works, due to be completed over the course of 2027/28.
Matthew Bryant said:
“We’re very pleased to be opening the first of our New Hospital Programme developments, which we know will make a huge difference for local people living with severe mental illness.
“Chaddesley House will allow us to provide the highest level of care to more local people – here in Dorset, close to their friends and family. It has been designed together with service users, and the environment of care is of a very high quality which will help people recover as quickly as possible and will also make a great difference to families, carers and NHS staff.
“Together with our other NHP project for children and young people at Alumhurst Road, this building is part of the transformation of Dorset’s mental health services to make them modern, accessible and centred around meeting the needs of people. We’re very grateful to the Government’s New Hospital Programme, service users and peer specialists from the Dorset Mental Health Forum, our partners Kier who constructed the building and everyone at Dorset HealthCare who has worked so hard to make this happen.”
Natalie Forrest, Chief Programme Officer of the New Hospital Programme, said:
“Chaddesley House marks an important milestone for both Dorset and the New Hospital Programme. This modern new facility will help more people receive high-quality mental health care closer to home, in an environment designed to support recovery, wellbeing and dignity.
“It’s fantastic to see the first phase of Dorset’s wider mental health investment now complete, with further improvements still to come for local communities.”
The next Dorset HealthCare NHP project – a £17.9 million eight-bed high intensity environment unit for children and young people in Alumhurst Road, Bournemouth – is set to open in June.
It will mean seriously ill young people can be cared for locally instead of being sent for specialist treatment elsewhere, potentially hundreds of miles from family and friends, which will greatly improve their chances of recovery.
Watch a short video about the opening of Chaddesley House on Dorset HealthCare's YouTube channel. https://