Camden News: David Taylor | Mental Health | Camden and Islington Foundation Trust

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

Camden News - by SIMON WROE
Published: 19 February 2009

Incoming and outgoing Camden and Islington Foundation Trust chairmen Richard Arthur and David Taylor

It’s over to you: New mental health boss takes over amid fears for hospital

IT was smiles and pats on back among Camden’s mental health bosses at the swan-song meeting of outgoing chairman David Taylor on Tuesday.
The changing of the guard at the Camden and Islington Foundation Trust will see Richard Arthur, former Labour leader of Camden Council, take charge of the health service, which is currently rated “excellent” by the Mental Health Act Commission (MHAC), at the end of March.
But beneath the praise, familiar rumbles of discontent could be heard at the governors’ meeting in Holloway. Accusations and speculation continued to rage over the fate of St Luke’s Hospital, one of the sites where bed numbers and mental health services have been reduced as part of the Trust’s controversial Cost Improvement Programme.
Governor David Hayes, a service user, charged trust chiefs with “presenting a false, deceiving picture” of the current status of St Luke’s and echoed concerns raised by the MHAC about the trust’s lack of communication about the Victorian hospital’s future.
“It is simply not true for you to tell the governors that there has been a formal consultation over St Luke’s. Closure would be the final act of vandalism,” he told the board.
Trust chief executive Wendy Wallace said it was “not the plan” to shut St Luke’s, only to reduce inpatient bed numbers.
“St Luke’s covers a whole number of services. There’s quite a number of training and staff accommodation, and an adolescent ward, all staying. We do have an issue about what we do with our Camden service users,” she said.
Ms Wallace added that there were many options about future Trust sites, and St Luke’s “was still in the mix”.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment: