The Abraham Cowley Unit (ACU), located in Chertsey, closed in Spring 2022 to allow us to build a new mental health inpatient service on the same site. The new service is due to open in late 2024.
The ACU opened in 1988 located within the grounds of the St. Peter’s Hospital campus. The ACU provided mental health services to people in Chertsey and the surrounding areas.
The unit provided three wards for adults with acute mental illness and a ward for women aged 65+ with functional mental illness. These services worked closely with acute therapies, Home Treatment teams and psychiatric liaison teams who are based at the ACU. Several community services were also based here. Similarly, to Farnham Road Hospital, there were facilities for people who are brought in by the police in need of a place of safety under Section 136.
The environment had been identified as not suitable to deliver the high-quality care in respectful, safe, and therapeutic environments that the Trust, and commissioning partners, aspired to. This viewpoint was supported by the CQC and people with lived experience of using these services. Between summer 2020 and spring 2021 significant works were carried out to address fundamental safety issues within the inpatient environments.
The inability to eliminate dormitories was the main environment deficit, but limited access to outside space, insufficient spaces within the ward for therapeutic activities, a layout which is challenging to manage safely plus the ageing infrastructure of the building were some of the other factors which contributed to its urgent need for replacement.
It would not support the forward direction of inpatient services set out by the Government in its White Paper on reforms of the Mental Health Act in 2021. In summary, the environment, inhibited rather than enabled, the delivery of a recovery focussed model of care.
These are images showing the former Abraham Cowley Unit, before it was demolished.
