Harriett Baldwin has submitted her written response to the consultation on the proposed closure of Sheffield House in Malvern by the Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.

She has recently visited Sheffield House and has met with service users at Malvern Mind and at Rethink. The consultation ends on May 31st.

Key points from her submission are:

• I was very impressed by the facility and the staff at Sheffield House. I have also heard nothing but praise for this facility from all the service users I met at Malvern MIND and Rethink.
• I understand that there is a shortage of transitional housing in the County and more provision in this area would be welcome.
• There is also a shortage of respite care county-wide.
• The Trust gives as one of its reasons for closing the facility the fact that usage is under 100%. Any facility that is designed to admit patients in crisis must by design operate at less than 100% capacity at all times, in order to be ready to admit a new user.
• Complementary therapy and behavioural therapies would be missed by the service users who currently benefit from them. The Trust should attempt to find a way to deliver these services.
• The users of Sheffield House are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The facility has been very successful and should if anything be made available to more service users in the county.
• I would be supportive of some change of use to allow for the creation of two units of transitional housing.
• The doctor's appointments, injections, complementary therapies and dispensary do not have to be done from Sheffield House. The storage of Clozaril needs to be registered elsewhere. The critical need of service users is that someone checks on them when they fail to show up for an appointment or have not come in for their medication.

 

Click here to download full submission.