Willow House mental health unit in Wokingham to close down

Willow House, based at Wokingham Hospital, is a 9-bed inpatient support unit for youngsters aged 12-18 years old with severe mental problems and serious eating disorders.

It has supported adolescents from across Berkshire since August 2015 but come April 2021 the facility will be no more.

NHS chiefs say the building is no longer suitable and because there is ‘not a need for more beds’ the site will close in favour of an ‘out of hospital’ service that will ‘ensure better care for children and young people in Berkshire.’

A Generic Stock Photo to illustrate a stressed child being comforted. See PA Feature FAMILY Mental Health. Picture credit should read: iStock/PA. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FAMILY Mental Health.

How will the new service work?

Willow House will close to inpatients on 30 April, 2021, with a transition to a new service starting this month.

The new service will provide a comprehensive therapy programme, education, and wide-ranging activities that ‘guide the recovery of the young person in a holistic way’.

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Treatment will be delivered through daycare and intensive home treatment programmes that will be offered seven days a week, 365 days per year.

For those still needing inpatient care, there are a number of units across the Thames Valley region which can provide this, including a large children’s mental health unit near Maidenhead.

What did users and their families have to say about this change?

According to an NHS document, people who used the service said Willow House was ‘poorly maintained’ and ‘crumbling’ and ‘felt like a lock-up place for over-medicated teenagers’.

Willow House in Wokingham

They claimed intensive community support would have been better than an inpatient service, as well as home visits and better therapy provision.

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust says it took these views into consideration in the development of the new service.

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Will youngsters benefit from the change?

According to the NHS group, the provision of services closer to home and increased community support will ‘bring improvements in patient experience and long-term outcomes’.

And once the new service is fully operational, it is estimated the local NHS will have the capacity to support more young people (16) than it was able to at Willow House (9).

A Generic Stock Photo to illustrate a stressed child being comforted. See PA Feature FAMILY Mental Health. Picture credit should read: iStock/PA. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FAMILY Mental Health.

Louise Noble, ‎Head of Integrated Services for Children, Young People & Families and the NHS Trust, said: “At the moment we are seeing what's being defined as a national crisis in relation to eating disorders […] and particularly that very high-level need where they need admission to a bed.

“And we don't have enough of those spreads across the country. So, what we're trying to do in terms of our intention with our community provision is absolutely in line with the national direction of travel.

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“We know that inpatient care is very often not the answer for the eating disorders cohort.

“All of the evidence around eating disorders is actually that it's a family-based model that you have to implement.

“So taking a young person out of their family and putting them in a secure inpatient unit is not the answer.

PICTURE POSED BY MODEL .File photo dated 09/03/15 of a woman showing signs of depression. Around 8.5 million adults and 1.5 million children in England are likely to need mental health support in the wake of Covid-19, according to a new report. PA Photo.

“The young people that we have present with high levels of self-harm, emotional dysregulation and risk of a high risk of suicide.

“Again, what we see with those young people is that they actually learn really unhelpful behaviours.

“In an inpatient setting, we get very much and get a lot of group behaviour going on.

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“And again, actually being able to support them at home, through the provision of the daycare programme groups, supporting them through digital and telephone and a really strong focus on support for families, [...] is very much where the clinical evidence suggests we should be going.”

What about the risk of more patients following the coronavirus pandemic?

Speaking at a meeting of Bracknell Forest Council’s health and wellbeing board, councillor Dale Birch said there is an ‘anticipation’ the demand for mental health services is going to be greater following the coronavirus pandemic.

He asked Ms Noble how the Trust would accommodate for that with the closure of Willow House in mind.

A generic photo posed by a model of a boy looking sadly out of a window. See PA Feature FAMILY Expert Mental Health. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/thinkstockphotos. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FAMILY Expert

NHS data shows 28 people were admitted to Willow House in 2020, with 56 needing top-level mental health support over the course of the year.

Fourteen of these youngsters were from Bracknell Forest.

Responding to Cllr Birch’s question, Ms Noble said NHS chiefs know they are going to see demand for ‘lower-level mental health support come the end of the pandemic, but are unsure if there will be a greater need for higher-intensity support too.

She said referrals after England’s second national lockdown did not go above the number they started at.

The ‘significant’ increase, however, has been in eating disorder referrals.

However, she said NHS staff can treat youngsters with eating disorders more quickly in a family setting and that with the new service in place, carers will be able to treat a greater volume of young people with said issues.