New £7m mental health unit opens in Derbyshire
A new £7million mental health unit opened its doors at Ilkeston Community Hospital on Friday, bringing together services previously scattered across Derbyshire into one place.
The Ilkeston Resource Centre has centralised a range of outpatient and day services for older people and people with dementia that were formerly in Derby, Belper and Ilkeston.
It is part of a wider £32million Government investment to transform mental health services in Derbyshire.
The purposed-designed, stand-alone building will re-house the Woodside day services centre, already at the hospital, which will be renamed Midway Day Hospital, as well as providing a base for the community mental health teams from all over Erewash and Amber Valley.
Rutland Manor Nursing Home in Heanor Road looks after elderly patients, many of whom suffer from dementia.
Manager Elaine Mallard said: “For us it will be really nice to have all the services we need literally down the road. All of the visiting mental health professionals and psychiatrists and so on, won’t have to travel from Derby anymore.”
Chief executive of Derbyshire Mental Health Services NHS Trust, Mike Shewan, said: “Our new unit is an important step forward for mental health services in Derbyshire, providing first-class facilities to match the skills of our first-class staff.
“It provides a modern and caring environment which better meets the needs of older people with mental health problems who use our NHS services.
“The opening has been long-awaited by the community and I am pleased that, after a lot of hard work by staff in preparing for the move, that day has now arrived – on time and on budget.
“It will add an extra dimension to the high quality services we strive to achieve across Derbyshire.
“It will also complement the modern new units that we have built at Kingsway Hospital in Derby and which are also poised to open.”
Ahead of the opening, new contact details for the unit have been circulated directly to GPs, social services, users of the service, their carers, as well as other appropriate groups across Derbyshire.
