Westminster’s mental health services do away with inpatient hub at Gordon Hospital
By Ben Lynch, Local Democracy Reporter
Westminster may be left with no inpatient mental health services under NHS proposals not to reopen the provision at the Gordon Hospital.
The North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB) has instead recommended retaining 67 beds at St Charles Hospital in Kensington and Chelsea and to locate the Mental Health Crisis Assessment Service (MHCAS) at the site.
The Gordon Hospital, which is in Bloomburg Street just off Vauxhall Bridge Road, will instead be used as ‘an asset for South Westminster by providing different community services from the space’.
The proposal has led to concerns over the ability to meet the needs of mental health patients.
The inpatient services at the Gordon Hospital were temporarily closed in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic. Prior to that it had 51 beds across three wards. Following the closure there was a shift to deliver more community-based services such as the MHCAS.
In a Decision Making Business Case (DMBC) presented to a joint Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea scrutiny committee, the ICB wrote that since the service changes in 2020 there had been a ‘shift in the balance of care’.
“There are now fewer patients being supported in restrictive inpatient provision and more within the community,” it read. “There has been no reduction in the number of patients admitted under section, but a substantial drop in the number of informal (voluntary) admissions.”
The Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL), which owns the Gordon and runs the services in question, also contributed to developing the business case.
A public consultation was run between October 24 2023 and February 16 2024 presenting three potential future options on the future of the services. These were: essentially revert to the state of affairs in 2019; restore a single ward at the Gordon and reduce some of the community-based provision; or do not reopen the wards at the Gordon but add to the community services, in particular the MHCAS. This latter option was the one recommended in the consultation.
The ICB opted to revise the original recommendation to instead locate the MHCAS in a new refurbished facility at St Charles rather than at the Gordon and enhance the community-based services established since the 2020 closure. The wards at the Gordon would not be reopened.
Speaking at last week’s scrutiny committee meeting, Cllr Nafsika Butler-Thalassis, deputy leader og=f Westminster City council, said she was ‘extremely disappointed’ by the DMBC.
She said: “Essentially the business case is about turning a hospital into an office building, and if this happens we will lose it as a hospital forever. I see what’s happening currently to our police stations. Our police stations are all being demolished and turned into office buildings and so if this goes ahead, at the moment it will be an office building for the NHS.
“In a few years time it will be demolished, it will become another office building, much bigger, much easier to use, and we will lose it as a site of clinical care forever. This is the pathway we are on.”
Cllr Kim Taylor-Smith, Deputy Leader at Kensington and Chelsea council, similarly said he was concerned about the proposal. He said having a single hospital with 67 beds across the two boroughs would be ‘inadequate’.
A spokesman for the ICB said: “In line with the national direction of travel, we are investing more in community mental health services while ensuring we retain enough inpatient beds for those who need them. The preferred option in our consultation is to expand our mental health crisis assessment service, including provision for overnight admissions when needed.
“We are confident that the preferred option strikes the right balance between community and inpatient care.”
Pictured top: Gordon Hospital (Google Street View)