Hospital’s ‘secure unit’ plan scrapped in Highgate Mental Health Centre

Published: 23 July, 2010
by TOM FOOT

PLANS to build a “secure unit” for unstable criminals inside a mental health hospital have been dropped because of a funding crisis in the NHS. 

A spokesman for the Camden and Islington Foundation Trust said the planned 15-bed unit in Highgate Mental Health Centre was no longer appropriate “in the current economic climate”.

The unit would have housed criminals the courts believed were too dangerous to be released from prison “into the community”.

The plans had triggered concern among residents who were preparing to launch a campaign.