Councillors have questioned managers of Rampton Hospital – the Nottinghamshire high-security psychiatric hospital about its progress following a damning inspection report.
Rampton Hospital was rated ‘inadequate’ in 2023 after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) identified several serious problems.
At the time, concerns were raised about staffing numbers, staff supervision, training, and medicine management.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the facility near Retford, has produced a progress report after inspectors revisited the hospital in October 2024.
Inspectors state that the hospital, which has around 340 patients, has now made “significant improvements” and addressed their recommendations.
The trust’s own progress report indicates that six out of seven recommendations made by the CQC have now been completed.
Councillors met at Nottinghamshire County Council’s health scrutiny committee meeting on Monday (7th January) to discuss the progress.
The trust manages several Nottinghamshire mental health facilities and services in addition to Rampton.
Cllr Johno Lee questioned the trust’s record on protecting patients, families, and the public.
During the meeting, hospital bosses explained that the trust cares for patients who are serious criminal offenders, as well as others who are “high risk” but have no criminal convictions.
Jan Seinser, Executive Director of Partnerships and Strategy at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, said:
“I met a recent patient who came to the ward [at Rampton], and he came from prison. I said, how do you find this? He said, ‘I feel like I’ve come home,’ because he hadn’t been in a specialist unit in prison and he felt like he had a community who understood him.”
Cllr Johno Lee questioned what types of criminals are being transferred to Rampton Hospital, which is not classified as a prison.
He asked: “My question is, could you explain the type of criminals and what convictions they would have going to Rampton?”
Ms Seinser responded that “not every patient” at Rampton has committed an offence, although the hospital does care for some “very serious violent offenders”.
Diane Hull, Executive Director of Nursing at the trust, said many patients are placed in Rampton because of their “risk behaviours” and because they “cannot be cared for safely in any other environment”.
Cllr Lee replied:
“I’m sure residents would not be aware that people who don’t have convictions are being kept with people who have convictions. Yes, we want to keep them safe and have them looked after. But when they get sent to prison, they should be kept away from people.”
After the meeting, he added:
“Residents like me would be concerned to find out that convicted serious criminals are being cared for in an NHS structure and not prison.”
He continued: “This system isn’t working well. If we send people to prison, we want them to be in prison to protect the public.”
Rampton, near Retford, is one of three high-security hospitals in England and Wales that provides psychiatric care.
