Runwell Hospital [B&W] July 2010

tom46 said:

This is the first of two visits to Runwell we made this summer. We were pretty stoked about it seeing as it was something of an unknown quantity to us, and there were all sorts of scare stories about security as well as myths about bits of brain lying around.

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Pete said:

I can assure you from first hand experience that the so called 'myth' was reality, albeit mounted on glass slide and long since skipped. The security had been considerably stepped up as Runwell seemed to become a more popular retreat for the weekend than Southend, bearing in mind at that time the hospital was still in use and there were allegations of photos being taken of patients. Like or dislike the modern architecture, its more or less one of its kind now.

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At Runwell secure psychiatric hospital in Essex there is a regulation perimeter fence but patients are not locked in their rooms, and there are no bars on the windows. Security here is much lower than at an ordinary prison even though most of Runwell's patients have also committed crimes.

"I think what we try and create is a homely experience within a secure service. We are aware of the issues around security but fundamentally this is about treatment and recovery," Oliver Shanley, director of nursing, said.

One senior nurse from a medium secure unit who has worked in the field for more than 10 years expressed his concerns about security.

"One of the units I worked in recently was not fit for purpose.

"We said to our trust that we wanted to have bars put on windows that patients could possibly escape from and managers didn't do it because they said it was aesthetically unpleasing and could stifle the therapeutic nature of the unit and they didn't have the finances - until three people broke out and then they had the finances to sort it out."

The Ministry of Justice defines escape as when a prisoner unlawfully gains their liberty by breaching a secure perimeter. A prisoner escapes from escort when they are able to pass beyond the control of escorting staff.

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