Derby A&E mental health patients benefit from a new standalone 24/7 assessment centre]

Members of the Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust outside the new mental health urgent assessment centre at the Radbourne Unit on the Royal Derby Hospital site

Patients attending Royal Derby Hospital’s A&E due to a mental health crisis can now benefit from a new standalone 24/7 assessment centre.

The new mental health urgent assessment centre is housed within the Radbourne Unit at Royal Derby Hospital, which already accommodates patients with significant mental health conditions.

This centre involves refurbishments of existing space to form four assessment rooms, a clinical room, offices and a reception.

It opened on Monday, September 28th, and forms one of 59 such centres opening within existing hospital provision across the country, via new £343 million investment from central government.

The new centre is not a new emergency department but a specialist 24-hour centre for patients who have attended Royal Derby’s existing A&E and been referred on for “rapid” support in a “calmer and more private setting”.

Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is managing the new centre and says the facility will support those “in a self-defined mental health crisis”.

Initially the new centre will only take referrals from Royal Derby’s emergency department and cannot accept any walk-in patients, the trust says.

A similar centre will be opened in the Chesterfield area by 2029, the trust says, via an agreement from the Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board cluster, but a site has not yet been identified, the trust says.

Mark Powell, chief executive at the trust, said: “The new mental health urgent assessment centre is a vital addition to the mental services we currently offer to people and will greatly improve the experience and outcomes of those who present at the emergency department with a self-defined mental health crisis.  

“Thank you to all trust colleagues who have worked tirelessly to ensure the centre meets the needs of those who require this essential service. 

“Also, a big thank you to our partners across the system, particularly colleagues at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust (which runs Royal Derby) for working together on pathway designs.”

Baggy Shanker, Labour MP for Derby South, said in August, when the new centre was announced: “When somebody reaches crisis point, they deserve specialist help quickly – not a long wait in a busy A&E. 

“People will be assessed quickly in a calm, therapeutic environment and connected with the right ongoing care. It means getting the right help in the right place while also easing pressure on A&E.”

He dubbed the £343 million investment in 59 new centres “the biggest redesign of adult mental health services in a generation” and that the Labour Government was “rebuilding an NHS that is there for people when they need it”.

Mr Shanker had said: “Serious mental ill health should be treated with the same urgency as any other health emergency.”

The announcement in August had said the new centre was to open before March 2027 but the facility is now open.

Yvette Cooper, health and social care secretary, had said the new centres for emergency patients would help “turn the tide on mental ill health”.