The Chairman of the North Yorkshire County Council, Councillor Jim Clark, who heads the Council’s health committee, has alleged National Health Services (NHS) bosses of operating a postcode lottery. Mr. Clark revealed that they had decided to build a mental health hospital in a neighbouring district after scraping plans of building such a hospital in another location.
Reportedly, Mr. Clark revealed that Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust was set to start the construction of a 72-bed hospital in York, but it had already had plans for a new inpatient unit to be located in Harrogate, which were obviously abandoned.
Councillor Clark disapproved of the change of plans and explained that it had been more important for Harrogate to see such a project brought to life, as it had suffered more than other areas. He added that York, where the new mental health hospital is set to be located, had seen much more investment in similar projects thank Harrogate. Earlier, the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust itself had revealed that the demand for such services in Harrogate district is about three times higher in comparison to the other areas to which it provides with mental health care, including Teesside, York, County Durham and North East Yorkshire.
The facilities such as these would be used not only to help mentally ill adults, but would also aim at helping problem gamblers. For some time now, compulsive gambling have been regarded as a form of mental illnesses by some experts. Recently, the region of Northeast England has seen various organisations trying to raise local residents’ awareness of problem gambling-related harm by initiating various campaigns.
Last year, the Children’s Home of York won the authorities approval to provide preventative problem gambling services to residents on York County, in order to help them deal with the negative consequences they face due to fighting gambling addictions.
Harrogate Facility Project Swapped for the One in York
Previously, the Trust had revealed that a mental health facility is planned to be given a start after getting an approval in August 2016, with the project being set for construction at Beckwith Head Road, west of Harrogate. The construction plans included a facility featuring 36 single en-suite bedrooms for the hospital patients, a place of safety for more vulnerable individuals detained by the police, as well as gardens and spaces for patients and their families.
At the time when the project was unveiled, it was gladly welcomed by the Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones, who said that the £16-million facility that was planned to be built was the largest investment in mental health the area had ever seen. The project was also hailed by Councillor Richard Cooper who headed the Harrogate Borough Council, with him saying that such a facility could help people who were failed by the system and provide them with proper care.
According to information released in local media, contractors were working to improve road access to the planned facility site in 2017, but then suddenly an announcement emerged, revealing that the NHS Harrogate and Rural District Clinical Commissioning Group (HaRD CCG) and the Trust had decided to put the project on pause. Then, only a month after the Harrogate project was provided with planning permission, the Care Quality Commission revealed that Bootham Park, the York mental health hospital would have to close due to being unsafe. Then, the Trust announced plans for a new facility in York, only two weeks before it revealed that the Harrogate project was put on hold.
- Author
Daniel Williams
