Changes planned for elderly mental health care

The Black Country has a higher than average dementia diagnosis rate, the NHS said

Changes to mental health care for older people have been put forward, with a focus on community-based support.

Black Country Healthcare NHS is seeking people's views on the proposals.

Its preferred option is to provide a service where patients are cared for at home in "virtual wards", alongside new inpatient units at hospitals in Walsall and Sandwell. The move would see wards at Penn and Bushey Fields hospitals close.

Other options are to make "smaller-scale changes" which would see care being provided on wards which were less modern, the trust said, or to keep the current provision of care as it is.

The health trust said its preferred choice aligned with a wider NHS focus on community-based care, as well as a higher than average dementia diagnosis rate in the Black Country.

Care 'close to home'

James Cole, divisional director, said the trust had explored a range of options and believed its preferred choice would enable the trust to provide "a system of high-quality, future-focused care as the number of dementia diagnoses across the UK is set to rise".

Diagnoses across the UK are expected to increase to 1.4 million by 2040, the trust said.

Deputy chief executive officer Kuli Kaur-Wilson said the trust was doing its best for the community by "ensuring that people will be supported close to home, with access to high-quality specialist inpatient care when it is necessary".

Two "state-of-the-art, multimillion-pound older adult units" had been developed at Dorothy Pattison Hospital in Walsall which opened in February, followed by Edward Street Hospital in Sandwell, which is due to open to patients this month, the trust said.

If the preferred option goes ahead, the Meadow, Malvern and Holyrood wards at Penn and Bushey Fields hospitals, in Wolverhampton and Dudley, would eventually close.

People can give their views until 31 October.