Bridlington: Axe falls on mental health wards

A mental health ward is to close at Bridlington Hospital within weeks, and a second could close in three years - reports the BBC.

The Humber Mental Health NHS Trust said it was planning to treat more patients in their homes.

Mick Pilling, who is leading a campaign to save the hospital, said it was "another nail in the coffin, another much-needed service gone."

Last November it emerged the hospital's maternity unit is to close as the local NHS trust tackles £7m of overspending.

Hospital bosses had said mothers-to-be in the town would be encouraged to opt for home births.

Now officials at the mental health trust, which runs the threatened Waters Ward in Bridlington, said home treatment for older patients would replace in-patient services.

They said the Waters Ward would close in the autumn, with beds transferring to Castle Hill Hospital at Cottingham, near Hull.

Officials said that either the Buckrose Ward at the hospital or Bartholomew House at Goole would also close, probably within three to five years.

Mr Pilling added: "Waters Ward will close in the autumn and be taken to Castle Hill by all accounts.

The mental health trust said some patients would eventually be treated at a new facility to be built in the East Riding.

The mental health trust is part of the bigger Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust which earlier this month announced it was to axe 600 jobs - a third of its workforce - at two Yorkshire hospitals.

The trust, which runs hospitals in Scarborough and Bridlington, plans to close wards and reduce non-clinical support services to save £15m.

Union officials had said the cuts would have a "devastating" impact on patients.

The trust's chief executive, Iain McInnes, said the trust needed to work "more efficiently, with fewer positions".