A NEW mental health ward for dementia patients is being piloted on the Isle of Wight — four years after a specialist ward closed over care concerns.

The Isle of Wight NHS Trust now hopes to restore provision, after a plan was drawn up in 2021 to improve services.

Shackleton Ward's closure at St Mary's Hospital, in Newport, in August 2019, was partially due to staff shortages.

A damning report from the Care Quality Commission also raised concerns about the quality of care and clinical managerial support.

Newly refurbished dementia ward at St Mary's Hospital closed again due to lack of staff

It meant Island dementia patients who were suffering with their mental health were forced to go to the mainland to be cared for, away from their loved ones —  a move which cost the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

In December 2020, 15 months after Shackleton Ward was shut, four patients were still being cared for off-Island.

Speaking at the Isle of Wight Council's policy and scrutiny committee for health and social care earlier this week, Dr Lesley Stephens, the trust's mental health director, said the closure allowed them to invest in an outreach team, caring for people where they live.

She said it had been an extremely successful model, which was now being shared across Hampshire, and had led to a significant reduction in the number of Island patients needing those specialist beds on the mainland.

The six-month pilot has been set up in Afton Ward, at St Mary's, with fewer beds to give staff space and to accommodate specialist nursing provision.

The dementia and mental health outreach team will also provide support in the eight-bed ward, with an aim to discharge patients quickly.

The trust is also in conversations with a private provider, Dr Stephens said, to provide beds outside of the hospital, in a specialist nursing home, to support those who are at risk of admission.

She said there is now only a very small number of patients who have the specific mental health needs to be admitted to hospital.

Dr Stephens said the pilot will give the trust a direction of travel and a more permanent solution to the problem.