£150 million Derbyshire mental health projects to create 200 jobs

The “Making Room for Dignity” project led by Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, will see three new-build units and three extensive conversion projects on existing outdated facilities.

All in all, these projects have created 27 full-time equivalent roles this year and a further 204 jobs are to be generated in the next financial year (from April 2024 to April 2025). Trust board papers for a meeting this week detail the progress on each project within the overall scheme – last priced at £150 million.

The two 54-bed mental health units on the Chesterfield Royal Hospital and Kingsway Hospital (Derby) sites are due to be completed in Autumn 2024 and be open and ready for use by November 2024 – costing £80 million. A psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) for 14 men on the Kingsway site would be complete by November 2024 and open by March 2025.

An eight-bed “enhanced care unit” or high-severity mental health facility at the refurbished Audrey House facility at Kingsway would be complete by December this year and open from November 2024. The refurbishment of Ward 32 on the Radbourne Unit on the Royal Derby site would be finished by February 2025 and open from March 2025.

Meanwhile, refurbishment of Ward 35 on the Radbourne Unit would be finished by March 2026 and open from April 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 would be complete by November 2023 and open by August 2024.

The high-severity and intensive care units would mean that for the first time, patients requiring this level of mental health care would not have to be cared for outside of Derbyshire.

Leadership has said there were an average of 14 Derbyshire men receiving psychiatric intensive care outside of the county due to a total lack of local beds. Trust board papers to be discussed this week show that the average has now risen to around 22, as of September, with 31 patients currently receiving PICU assistance outside of Derbyshire.