Patients would be able to dim the lights, control the temperature and play music via Bluetooth at new multi-million-pound mental health facilities being built in Derbyshire.
Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is leading the construction of £150 million new mental health facilities in Chesterfield and Derby – dubbed the “making room for dignity” project – creating more than 230 jobs.
Mark Powell, the trust’s chief executive has shared more details of the new modern facilities in board reports for a meeting next week.
He writes: “Our Making Room for Dignity programme is continuing at pace. Through this programme, we are building new inpatient mental health facilities that will significantly improve the environment for people with acute mental health needs.
“The new facilities, which are located in Chesterfield and Derby, are progressing well and tours are being regularly held for Trust colleagues and other stakeholders.
“The bedrooms in all the new facilities have been designed to ensure service users benefit from a therapeutic environment from the moment they are admitted.
“The single bedrooms have en-suite showers, giving service users privacy and dignity to begin their recovery.
“As well as privacy, service users will have much more control over their environments, with the ability to dim the lights, control the temperature and play their own music by connecting their phones to the television via Bluetooth.
“These innovations are just the start of the therapeutic journey for service users, as occupational therapy and sensory environments will be at the heart of the new facilities. They will have sensory rooms and therapeutic activity rooms.
“All wards, including those on the upper floor, will have access to outside spaces, calm gardens with scented plants for quiet reflection and outdoor areas with gym equipment. “These will maximise wellness, while reducing the use of restrictive practices, medication and seclusion.”
The two largest new facilities being built are two 54-bed mental health units on the Chesterfield Royal Hospital and Kingsway Hospital (Derby) sites – costing £80 million.
These units are to be completed by autumn this year and will be operational from November, a new trust board report details.
Meanwhile, shared dormitory wards in the county are to be “eradicated” with patients to gain single-bed rooms through the regeneration.
The refurbishment of Ward 32 on the Radbourne Unit on the Royal Derby site is scheduled to be finished by February 2025 and open from March 2025 (now listed as Spring 2025).
Meanwhile, the refurbishment of Ward 35 on the Radbourne Unit was scheduled to be finished by March 2026 and open from April 2026 – this has now shifted to completion in January 2026 and operational use by March 2026.
Refurbishments of both Radbourne wards would create 34 single-bed rooms for women.
The relocation of a 12-bed older adult’s mental health ward from Chesterfield Royal to Walton Hospital was scheduled to be complete by November 2023 and open by August 2024 but this is now scheduled to be complete by July 2024 and live by September this year.
An eight-bed “enhanced care unit” or high-severity mental health facility at the refurbished Audrey House facility at Kingsway has been completed and is due to open from November 2024.
A new psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) for 14 men on the Kingsway site – eradicating the need for patients to be sent out of Derbyshire due to the current total absence of beds – was scheduled to be complete by November 2024 and open by March 2025. This has slipped to completion by December but the “go-live” target of March 2025 remains the same.
