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Uses of old long-stay hospital buildings

Lowin, Ana, Knapp, Martin R J., Beecham, Jennifer (1998) Uses of old long-stay hospital buildings. Psychiatric Bulletin, 22 (3). pp. 129-130. ISSN 0955-6036. (doi:10.1192/pb.22.3.129) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:26929)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
https://doi.org/10.1192/pb.22.3.129

Abstract

Closing old psychiatric and learning disability hospitals was promoted in the interest of patients' quality of life and normalisation. However, it was also hoped that re-using (or selling) the sites could help the development of a span of good mental health services in the community, which could ease the pressure on acute hospital beds. We identified the 206 large<p><p>psychiatric and learning disability hospitals with over 100 beds in 1962 and 1986 respectively. In August 1996 National Health Service regional executives were sent questionnaires, one per site, asking for summary information on closure dates, current use of hospital sites and difficulties relating to the sale of sites. Half of the land on sites no longer in use was vacant. Each vacant site generates maintenance costs, but these pale in comparison to the likely opportunity costs measured in terms of the health and community care services that could be provided with the resources released by selling or reusing vacant sites. If the future development of community mental health care is even partly dependent on the release of resources from asylum sites, we could be in for a long wait.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1192/pb.22.3.129
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research > Personal Social Services Research Unit
Depositing User: R. Bass
Date Deposited: 20 May 2011 14:46 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Mar 2023 11:32 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/26929 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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