A future for St Luke’s

Published: 9 December, 2010

• THANKS for your report (Revealed: the mental health beds   being secretly closed, December 2).

You referred to my remarks about St Luke’s psychiatric hospital.  Wouldn’t it make a lot of sense for the trust to settle on the two sites that it actually owns – Highgate Mental Health Centre and St Luke’s? 

The future of the St Pancras Hospital site is looking doubtful, as NHS Camden will no longer exist by 2013 if the government has its way and the mental health trust has a very limited lease on its wards there. 

Queen Mary’s, lovely though it is, is owned by the Royal Free, who may feel the need to sell it. 

It seems very unwise to leave the large site at St Luke’s to rot, when the trust has security of tenure there and when it could be redeveloped for both under and over-65s.

It is not inaccessible. it’s no further a journey than to travel to the Highgate Mental Health Centre, at the top of Dartmouth Park Hill. 

The trust’s chairman asserts that a decision will be made on the future of St Luke’s “hopefully in the next calendar year”. By then the property will be further deteriorated, and more costly to develop. 

It makes sense to bring this large, trust-owned property into the debate on bed provision, bearing in mind it can provide an environment where patients can recover  more quickly.

PENNY ABRAHAM 
ex-Camden councillor, 
Lady Somerset Road, NW5