New state-of-the art mental health hospital ready for service users | News

On Friday 1 March we marked the handover of Highgate East, a brand-new NHS mental health inpatient building on the Camden, Haringey and Islington border. This is a fantastic achievement for our Partnership and will help achieve our vision for ‘Better Mental Health. Better Communities. Better Lives.’

Highgate East’s cutting-edge design provides 78 all single ensuite rooms, replacing ageing inpatient facilities at St Pancras Hospital in Camden and providing a purpose-built environment which will support the recovery of service users and significantly improve the working lives of staff.

The new building has outdoor space from each ward, therapy spaces, plus a sports hall and a new community café. It is fully wheelchair accessible, and located next to the Whittington Hospital meaning that the physical health needs of our service users can also be supported.

Jinjer Kandola MBE, NLMHP Chief Executive said: “The mental health inpatient services moving to Highgate East are currently based at St Pancras Hospital, in buildings which were never designed to provide modern-day mental health care. Through our St Pancras Transformation Programme, we are delivering new therapeutic environments for service users and carers and improved working environments for our staff.

Highgate East’s cutting-edge design has been co-produced with our service users, carers, staff, and the wider community. Our new building will also be a valuable community asset with a café open to the public helping to destigmatise mental health.”

Dr Vincent Kirchner, Chief Medical Officer, said: “The new hospital will make a difference. Having a therapeutic environment will mean people recover better, and will be more comfortable.

Having bright spaces, good circulation, being able to control the temperature of your bedroom will definitely help people get better, faster."

Nicky Baker, one of our service users involved in the design process, said seeing the building "brought a tear" to her eye.

"I could actually cry," she said.

"It is so lovely - I'm going round saying 'Oh you put this in, you put that in' - they've actually listened to us which to me is a great feeling."

Highgate East will form a single campus with our Highgate Acute Mental Health Centre (Highgate West), replacing the ageing mental health facilities at St Pancras Hospital. Even with a large investment to upgrade them, the current mental health inpatient facilities at St Pancras Hospital would not meet the modern standards the Partnership wants for its service users, carers and staff.