Older people’s mental health inpatient services (OPS) – public consultation
Thank you to everyone who gave their views as part of the older people’s mental health inpatient services consultation.
A decision has now been reached to have a dedicated inpatient dementia service at Ward 19, Dewsbury and District Hospital, with inpatient wards for other mental health needs in Calderdale and Wakefield.
The public consultation heard from more than 1,500 people on where specialist wards in Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield could be located.
The local NHS looked at all the responses along with an independent review of the findings which also included information on equality. We also worked with other NHS organisations, councils and voluntary and community services to reach the decision which was made on 11 November at a joint NHS West Yorkshire ICB committee of Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield.
The decision is that, people living with dementia will be cared for on a specialist ward at Ward 19, Priestley Unit, Dewsbury and District Hospital. There will be two separate male and female wards, both with 15 beds (30 beds in total).
Dedicated wards for other mental health needs will be at Crofton Ward, Fieldhead Hospital, Wakefield, which will have two separate male and female wards with 26 beds, and one ward at Beechdale Ward, The Dales, Calderdale Royal Hospital, that will have 16 beds.
Professor Subha Thiyagesh, chief medical officer and clinical lead for older people, South West Yorkshire Partnership Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Thank you to everyone who took the time to give their views as part of this consultation. Your feedback was extremely important in helping us reach this decision.
“Throughout the consultation, we heard from people about how these changes will make a positive difference to our patients, families, carers, loved ones and our staff. These wards will give people the specialist care they need in a supportive and dedicated environment which is important in improving wellbeing, experience and quality of life. It also means that the service we have will be fit for purpose for years to come.
“There will be no immediate changes to the care of our patients as there is some building work that we expect will take around 12 to 18 months to complete. We will be keeping all our patients, families, carers and loved ones updated as we move to our dedicated wards.”
You can still read all the information about the consultation on this website.
Update – 17 July 2024
We have now received the independent report of findings from the older people’s mental health inpatient services consultation.
Thank you to everyone who gave their views and helped to share information about the consultation with their service users, carers, families and in your local communities.
The report pulls together a summary of all the feedback we heard during the consultation, which closed on 29 March 2024.
It outlines the feedback into a few categories:
- What people thought was most important when thinking about older people’s mental health inpatient services
- What people told us about each of the proposed options
- Travel, transport and parking
- Equality data
- Sustainability
- Additional considerations.
The report was produced independently by NHS Arden and Greater East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) and NHS Midlands and Lancashire CSU.
Next steps
- Our Trust, in partnership with NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), as the commissioner of our services, will now review the report, along with the updated equality impact assessment (EIA)
- We will use the report of findings to help with our deliberations on all the proposed options
- Following deliberations, a recommended option will be taken through a governance process in Autumn 2024
- We will keep you updated on our progress
Further information
You can read the report of findings here and the updated equality impact assessment here.
You can still browse this website for information about our proposals to create specialist inpatient wards for older people with dementia, and other mental health needs (such as anxiety, depression or psychosis), in Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield.
If you have any questions, please email opsconsultation@swyt.nhs.uk or call our freephone number, 0800 587 2108, and someone will be in touch to help you.
A note on our images:
Thank you to the Centre for Ageing Better for the use of their free image library.