Interesting workshop in York today,
of the NHS England T4 providers of personality disorder services, plus a small number of hangers-on like me.
For our long-planned meeting of
about 15, we were denied space at The Retreat, and were booked into to a
Catholic Convent instead, but only informed about the change three days ago.
George Broke, a development director for Schoen, came to introduce himself to us and explain.
The Retreat has now largely been
taken over by Schoen, which is a large German MH hospital group, about the size
of Priory, with an ambitious/vigorous/aggressive business plan to expand into
the UK, particularly for large specialist inpatient units.
The only Quaker-run bit that
remains of The Retreat is community and outpatient services at The Tuke Centre
(presumably without space for our meeting).
He was very positive about how
most of the Retreat inpatient staff had been TUPE’d over to the new owners (not
Tuke’d I’m afraid) and that the Kemp Unit and eating disorder unit (Acorn in a
previous incarnation, and the first ever UK TC to be accredited, but no longer
a TC) were both promising elements of their business development, although perhaps a
bit more innovative than Schoen are used to.
But the new plans for the site
are certainly back in line with the modern world: they are soon to add a substantially
enlarged inpatient unit – including Kemp + ED – to be built to the southeast of
the old hospital façade. Hopefully hidden enough to not impinge too much on the
grade A listed piece of mental health heritage. We’ll see.
All rather sad, I think. Possibly
the end of moral treatment as we know it…
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| Formerly known as 'The Retreat' |
