New £7m unit at London mental hospital

Barchester News
28/10/2005
A new high-safety £7 million unit has been opened at a mental hospital in south London.

A new high-safety £7 million unit has been opened at a mental hospital in south London.

The Phoenix unit, attached to Springfield Hospital in Tooting, replaces an old Victorian asylum building and is designed to promote mental well-being.

The building is part of South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust's major building modernisation scheme, the Wandsworth Borough Guardian reports.

John Rafferty, chairman of the trust, said: "The new Phoenix unit is an exciting model of how in-patient facilities should be.

"It is a vast improvement on the old Phoenix, which was housed in a Victorian building more than 160 years old, and I am delighted that it has been brought in on budget and on time."

Welcoming the new design, Rachel Perkins, trust director of quality assurance, said: "All rooms are en-suite, there are even a couple of bedsits, there are proper activity areas, sitting rooms, even a landscaped courtyard with a barbecue."

The locked unit was designed on a curve plan to ensure staff could observe patients easily.