How secure is this unit?

Published: 16 July, 2010

• CONCERN has been expressed about the way that Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust manages to look after people and protect the public, its own staff and patients.


It is very concerning to learn that development is well underway of a secure unit at Highgate Mental Health Centre site in Dartmouth Park Hill.

Such a unit will house people who the courts have decided need to be held securely in order to protect the public. 

But this unit will be in the centre of a large psychiatric unit where vulnerable men and women are receiving care.


What risk will the people detained in this unit pose? Why has the trust not consulted the public about this sensitive development?

What new procedures will be put in place to ensure that there are no “incidents”?

The failure of the old ones makes it clear that they need new ones.  


The public cannot take for granted that this organisation, which is famous for its “chocolates for votes” and £35,000 expenditure on a new logo, is responsible enough to be trusted to hold dangerous patients securely and provide the public with the protection it needs.


MR AND MRS J SPENCER
Mercers Road
N19