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Deadline set for patients to leave unsafe hospital

Matt Precey
News imageNHSE Man wearing a dark blue suit and tie with a white shirt. He is smiling at the camera and has brown hair. Behind him a white background.NHSE
NHS national mental health director Dr Nick Broughton the decision to move patients was "based upon serious safety concerns"

A deadline has been set for the first group of NHS patients to leave a mental health hospital over "serious safety concerns".

NHS England (NHSE) has told commissioners it has until the end of June to transfer the initial cohort out of St Andrew's in Northampton.

It follows a decision back in March to withdraw patients.

NHSE said it was asking colleagues "to work together, at pace" to carry out the move.

A letter from Dr Nick Broughton, the national programme director for mental health, was sent on Tuesday to England's 36 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).

He wrote that the decision to transfer patients out of St Andrew's "has been clinically led" and that patients would remain at the hospital "while new provision is identified".

"The improvement support and enhanced safety monitoring put in place by NHS England will continue," he added.

Dr Broughton said they were working to ensure the transfer would be safe.

News imageDawid Wojtowicz Aerial pictures of a large hospital site. There are numerous buildings which are attached or contiguous to one another. The buildings are coloured off-white or a shade of orange-red. There is a car park. To the left of the picture is a busy road.Dawid Wojtowicz
St Andrew's said it was working with the NHS "to understand the planned timetable for moving patients"

The document sets out the plan to move the initial groups from a total of 287 NHS patients who are set to leave the hospital.

The first phase will take place during the first quarter of this financial year and will cover the following:

  • Those in an adult forensic bed not from the Midlands or are in nationally commissioned services. Forensic patients are those held within the criminal justice system
  • Patients in a non-specialised bed
  • Patients in any bed who originate from the Midlands "who have been identified as clinically-ready for discharge (CRFD).

The decision last month to remove NHS patients followed a series of damning Care Quality Commission (CQC) reports into the hospital, which is operated by a charity.

Inspectors described how they had seen CCTV footage of staff kicking and hitting a patient during a restraint, as colleagues watched.

Separately, the BBC also revealed how 15 staff members had been arrested since October 2024 following allegations of rape, ill-treatment and neglect.

Northamptonshire Police confirmed that 10 people remained under suspicion and have been bailed or released pending inquiries.

A spokesman for St Andrew's said: "We are working with NHS England to understand the planned timetable for moving patients from our Northampton hospital.

"We will continue to drive improvements to ensure that, for the time they are with us, patients in Northampton receive safe, high-quality care."

Amid concerns over the future of the 2,000-plus staff currently working there, the hospital said it would "maintain the staffing levels needed to deliver safe care for our patients".

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