Provider blames staffing difficulties for closure of specialist unit

Ticehurst House’s mixed-sex child and adolescent mental health service psychiatric intensive care unit is closing, following the closure of its general adolescent CAMHS ward last month. The hospital is run by The Priory Group but took NHS-funded patients. 

Following an inspection last December, the Care Quality Commission imposed two requirement notices on the service over the use of CCTV in young people’s bedrooms. 

Despite having capacity for 25 patients, the CQC’s investigation last year revealed the East Sussex hospital had just four patients on each of its two wards. At that time, the provider was taking a reduced number of young people, due to “concerns raised by staff and external stakeholders”.

The CAMHS wards had been rated inadequate in the safe and well-led domains in an earlier inspection in September 2019, when the provider was issued with an enforcement notice around audit and governance processes, including those relating to risk reviews.

Meanwhile, in 2019, Priory Healthcare was fined £300,000 over the death of a 14-year-old patient in its care at Ticehurst House. Amy El-Keria died in 2012 after she was found unresponsive with a ligature around her neck in the CAMHS unit.

A spokesperson for the hospital said: “Due to challenges in recruiting specialist permanent staff, we have taken the extremely difficult decision to close the CAMHS services at Ticehurst Hospital. The closure is a precautionary measure, which is not related to any incidents at the service.

“The care of those we support is our absolute priority, and we worked closely with the patients, their families, and partners to ensure the young people who were being treated on the wards were fully supported in a smooth transfer to a new and suitable setting. Staff who worked on the wards have been redeployed within Priory Group, mainly to other wards at the hospital.”

However, the closure has led to various warnings about the lack of mental health beds.

Papers filed for Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust’s board meeting this week reveal chief executive Sam Allen said losing independent sector CAMHS beds is “further exacerbating the inpatient capacity issue”.

Meanwhile, Bernadka Dubicka, chair of the child & adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “We need urgent action to ensure that local generic mental health beds are readily available for all patients that need them….

“Sending mental health patients far from home, sometimes hundreds of miles away, because there isn’t the right bed available locally in a generic unit is completely unacceptable. It can have a devastating impact on young patients, their loved ones and make reintegration back into their local community much more difficult.”

HSJ has previously reported on CAMHS beds shortages over the last few months, with a senior clinician warning there was “no capacity anywhere” with particular concern over young people with eating disorders not being able to access beds.

An NHS South East spokesperson said: “The NHS in the South East worked with local services and partners to ensure patients were fully supported following the Priory Group’s decision to close CAMHS services at Ticehurst Hospital. Alternative places of care were identified for patients and anyone who needs this specialist care will continue to get it.”