NEWS
Planning green light for Bexhill inpatient facility
Planning permission has been granted to Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to build a new 54-bed mental health hospital on a site in Mount View Street, Bexhill-on-Sea, to replace outdated services at the Department of Psychiatry in Eastbourne. Funding is being made available under the national ‘Eradicating Mental Health Dormitories’ programme. Construction on site is set to begin early in 2023, and to be completed by late 2024 / early 2025. The local Council simultaneously granted outline planning permission for a second phase on the same site, which could potentially provide a further 72 beds, depending on further funding becoming available in the future. Programme director, Paula Kirkland, said:
“This decision is a major milestone towards implementing the first phase of our wider vision to create new, modern facilities to address all inpatient mental health needs on a single site for people across East Sussex and beyond. We are delighted that Rother District Council’s Planning Committee has agreed there is a need for a new mental health hospital, and that the land in Mount View Street is a suitable site. As the project progresses, we will continue to involve the local community, to ensure that not only will the new facilities provide high quality care, but also become a real asset to the Bexhill area.”
Immersive experience
launched to calm London commuters
Dr Andrew Hodson, local Medical director
for East Sussex, and Mental Health lead for NHS Sussex, added: “The new hospital will not only remove outdated dormitory accommodation, replacing the current shared wards with individual rooms with en-suite bathrooms, but will also provide a modern and improved therapeutic environment for patients, and create enough capacity to meet future inpatient needs.” Gilling Dod Architects are the architects
and interior designers for the development, with WSP providing multidisciplinary project management and engineering services, and Kier the Principal Supply Chain Partner.
Mental health leader recognised for his work in Jubilee Honours
The Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network, Sean Duggan, was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Honours List. The award recognises his 40 years’
service to mental health service delivery, which has seen him lead various organisations in the sector, having started his career as a registered mental health nurse in the late 1970s. The Mental Health Network said: “Sean is a passionate supporter of multi-sector service delivery within mental health, and has ensured that this is reflected in the membership of the Confederation’s Mental Health Network, which has grown under his leadership beyond statutory mental
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health Trusts to include independent and third- sector organisations, including digital providers and housing associations. The Confederation’s thriving network now has 80 mental health providers in membership.” Criminal justice and prison mental health
have been priorities for Sean Duggan over the past 30 years. In 2006, he joined the Sainsbury’s Centre for Mental Health as Director of the Criminal Justice Programme, before becoming Chief Executive. Immediately before this, he was Director of Health and Social Care for Criminal Justice at the London Development Centre, and offender health consultant for the Department of Health. He trained as a registered mental health nurse in 1979.
A new ‘immersive mindfulness experience’ designed and created by Pixel Artworks, ‘Room to Breathe’, opened in London on 25 July. Hosted within the NOW Trending Building within Outernet London – ‘a new immersive culture, media, and music district’ in Tottenham Court Road, the ‘soothing sensory experience’ is based on the science of ‘box- breathing’. The aim is ‘to help anxious commuters and busy Londoners unwind and catch their breath throughout the day’. Pixel Artworks was established in 2005, and claims to have ‘pioneered’ the use of light and pixel technology ‘to develop magical and measurable shared experiences for the world’s largest retailers, brands, and entertainment venues’. It said: “Since the pandemic there has been an increased focus on human wellbeing, and we have a greater understanding of anxiety, as we’ve shared a global traumatic event. Now, as people move around more freely and return to offices, they are experiencing increased stress, and the potential to be triggered into more anxious states. Providing free access to a calming and immersive experience like ‘Room to Breathe’ helps promote broader conversations around mental health and wellbeing, and is an opportunity to end the social stigma. It gives people time to stop and pause to breathe and just ‘be’.” Jayne Cox, ‘a leading trauma and anxiety consultant’, fed into the experience using her knowledge and understanding of how breathing exercises like ‘box breathing’ reduce anxiety. Accompanying the ‘visual cues’ of rolling clouds, calm skies, and the sun, all of which mimic regulated, calmer breathing patterns, is original music by Matt Wilcock. The music ‘slowly moves from acoustic piano, through to more organic synthesised tones, to help users settle into the calming, breath pattern’.
AUGUST 2022 | THE NETWORK
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