Work underway on new £4 million King's Lynn mental health unit project

Building work on a £4 million project to develop a new inpatient mental health unit in Lynn has begun.

Officials expect the scheme at Chatterton House, on Goodwins Road, to be completed next spring and claim it will improve services for patients.

The scheme will see a new 16-bed inpatient unit built at the site, plus the refurbishment of existing outpatient facilities.

The aim is to consolidate most adult mental health services at a single location, with inpatient treatment, crisis and home treatment teams transferring from their current base in the Fermoy Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Questions have previously been raised by campaigners about a lack of capacity in the sector in West Norfolk, particularly as the new unit will offer the same number of in-patient beds as the Fermoy unit currently does.

But Pauline Davies, the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust's locality manager for West Norfolk, says the project will "truly integrate" mental health services in the area, for the benefit of all patients.

She said: "People who have been discharged following inpatient care will be able to return to the same building to access community services, offering all-important continuity of care.

"The refurbishment has given us an excellent opportunity not only to improve the facilities from which we provide care, but also introduce additional services for the benefit of patients and their families.

"This will include a new day treatment service which will give clinicians more choice about the best way to support service users while ensuring more people can access the care they need within the community following an admission to an inpatient unit."

The trust also says work to develop alternatives to admission will continue after construction is completed.

When finished, the new unit is intended to offer en-suite single rooms for patients with a range of mental health conditions.

The trust says it has worked with both patients, clinicians and the borough's clinical commissioning group (CCG) on the scheme, which has received national funding.

John Webster, from the CCG, said: "This project is going to make a tremendous difference to West Norfolk service users and their families. It is nice to see it finally taking shape."