Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust have announced that Foss Park, the new, purpose-built mental health hospital, located on Haxby Road in York, will open on Tuesday 21 April, 2020.

Foss Park is a 72-bed hospital which provides two adult, single-sex wards (Ebor ward – female adult beds / Minster ward – male adult beds) and two older people’s wards (Wold View for people with dementia and Moor Croft for people with mental health conditions such as psychosis, severe depression or anxiety).

All wards provide ground floor, single bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms. Each ward has access to outdoor garden areas and multiple therapy spaces, including the use of internal planted courtyards.

Foss Park also has a Section 136 assessment suite – a place of safety for those who have been detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act, an electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) suite and dedicated space for research and development. York’s adult and older people’s crisis teams and the care home and dementia team will also relocate to Foss Park.

Service user and carer involvement has been embedded throughout the development of Foss Park. More than 50 design workshops involving service users and carers, along with clinical staff, have been facilitated to help inform and influence the design of the build. Service users and carers were also part of the working group which proposed the hospital site and ward names.

In total the Trust has invested approximately £40.6m in Foss Park, which includes VAT, fees and the land purchase. The project was due to complete later this month but the hospital has opened a week ahead of schedule

Colin Martin, Chief Executive at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are delighted to announce that Foss Park, our new, purpose-built mental health hospital in York, will officially open ahead of schedule on Tuesday 21 April.

“This is an incredibly important milestone for communities in the Vale of York and across North Yorkshire, and forms part of a wider transformation of mental health services in this area.

“We started this project in 2016 and our aim has always been to build an innovative, cutting-edge hospital that provides the highest quality of care for our local communities. Importantly we also wanted to ensure that there was service user and carer involvement throughout the lifespan of the project.

“To get to this position, particularly with all of the current challenges, is an incredible achievement. The teams involved in this – both within our Trust and partner organisations – have worked extremely hard to make sure that the project ran to schedule, especially in these last few weeks, so we are hugely thankful to everyone involved.

“We will be holding a number of events, when we are able to, to celebrate the opening of Foss Park with services users, carers, the local communities, partners and our staff.”

Services will move into Foss Park from the following Trust sites:

• Peppermill Court, York
• Cherry Tree House, York
• Meadowfields, York
• Cedar and Rowan wards, Briary Wing at Harrogate District Hospital
• Some services currently at Huntington House, York

There will be a phased approach to services moving into Foss Park over the next few weeks, beginning with patients from Peppermill Court on Tuesday 21 April.

Dr Nigel Wells, Clinical Chair, NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said: “It’s fantastic news that the Foss Park facility is opening ahead of schedule and demonstrates the dedication from community partners and the NHS to ensure it could be done at this time.

“At the heart of this project were our service users, who will now benefit from the modern facilities, high quality care and pioneering services available at Foss Park to support them in managing their conditions.

“This is an important step in transforming mental health services for those who need them in our community.”

A video of the new facility can be seen here 

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