The private hospital where patients from St Pancras Hospital were moved to

SHOCKING failures have been laid bare at a privately-run psychiatric hospital where some of the borough’s most vulnerable NHS patients have been sent.

Health chiefs are facing serious questions about what checks were made before people were moved out of St Pancras Hospital into the rock-bottom-rated Cygnet Harrow Hospital.

Camden and Islington Foundation NHS Trust’s accounts show it has been paying £600,000 every month to rent beds in the facility which this week was unmasked as one of the country’s worst by the government’s care standards watchdog.

The Care Quality Commission inspection, published this week following two unannounced inspections in May and June this year, branded the service “inadequate” in a report and revealed how one patient was taken to “appointments wearing handcuffs”.

In another case, someone was left in a room for 17 hours before “smeared faeces was cleaned up” and another patient told inspectors how they had resorted to “head-banging” against a wall as a way of communicating to staff that they needed support.

It revealed concerns that patients had been“mimicked and laughed at” by staff and how they were bored on the weekends with nothing to do in a communal room except watch a movie.

There was a culture of people eating alone in their rooms while the overall state of the building was described as “institutional” with alarms ringing and “harsh lighting” that was unfit for people with autism.

Carers had raised concerns that dental hygiene was going awry, “controlled drugs were not being administered correctly” and the defibrillator was not working. The ward was “visibly dirty and the décor was tired” with dust-covered radiators and “chairs were ripped” and the table tennis table was broken.

“The people found the weekends boring and wanted more things to do,” the report said.

“Some carers said people were gaining weight and they did not feel as though the service was supporting them to reduce it.

“Staff failed to provide care and treatment in a way that was safe, dignified, and upheld infection control principles,” the report said. One of Camden and Islington’s trust governors, Dr Sam Harding, said: “An inadequate, unsafe facility with patients being put in handcuffs has been paid £600,000 a month by the trust – this is unacceptable.”

In July 2022, the New Journal reported how around 30 sectioned mental heath patients were due to be moved out of a wing at St Pancras Hospital that was due to be demolished as part of a major redevelopment by Moorfields Eye Hospital.

The vulnerable people were supposed to be moved into a state of the art £70million 78-bed hospital in Highgate – but delays blamed on the Covid pandemic meant it was not ready at the time Moorfields wanted to take over the St Pancras site.

Thirty patients were transferred to two facilities run by Cygnet Healthcare – one in Harrow, the other one in Lambeth.

The New Journal in July 2022 wrote about the move, raising concerns that a vulnerable group of people would be moved not once but twice – and that the upheaval could worsen their conditions.

There is a critical shortage of beds for patients in London following years of ill-advised and cost-driven management decisions that has left the NHS spending huge sums renting bed space from the private sector.

The Cygnet Harrow hospital says it specialises in caring for patients with acute mental health conditions and also those struggling with debilitating forms of autism. It is one of the largest private providers of mental health services in the country and has contracts with many NHS trusts and local authorities.

It is owned by the US corporation Universal Health Services Inc, a Fortune 500 company.

Last month, Cygnet was fined £1,530,000 after pleading guilty in a criminal prosecution brought by the CQC over the death of a young woman in Ealing.

A Camden and Islington statement said: “Patient safety and comfort is our highest priority and we are reassured that many improvements have been made since the inspection of Cygnet Hospital Harrow earlier this year. We will be closely monitoring further progress to ensure improvements continue to address all of the areas identified by the CQC. Before transferring service users, we visited the hospital which was rated ‘good’ at the time, and reviewed all relevant quality and standards.

“We are developing a new Highgate Campus site, which includes a state-of-the-art 78-bed hospital, due to open in March 2024. Our patients will be moved out of Cygnet Hospital Harrow to the new campus at that time.”

A spokesperson for Cygnet Hospital Harrow said: “Although we are disappointed with the outcome of the inspection at Cygnet Hospital Harrow, we have already begun working hard to address the issues raised to ensure improvements are made quickly and implemented effectively.”