Journey to Better Mental Health

October 2022

Lowther Road community facility will help remove stigma for service users

The official ground-breaking of our new community mental health facility took place at 1 Lowther Road in Islington on Thursday 20 October.

The redevelopment, being built by UK construction company Kier, forms part of our St Pancras Transformation Programme. Once opened at the end of 2023, Lowther Road will provide a modern, welcoming space in the heart of the community. This will enable us to offer integrated services that address both mental health and physical health. Importantly, it will also provide an enhanced working environment for our staff.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony Johnny Valavanis, service user representative said: “One of the many benefits of Lowther Road being a community facility is that it will be accessible to all, helping to remove stigma for service users."

Jinjer Kandola MBE, Trust Chief Executive, said: “Improving the quality of our community facilities is a crucial part of our plans to help people with mental health problems to live well in their communities.

"The vision for Lowther Road has been created with input from our staff, service users and the local community. But it would not have been possible without the support of Islington council, sector stakeholders and NHS colleagues.”

Evergreen opens its doors

Our new Evergreen suite recently opened its doors in the South Wing of St Pancras Hospital. Evergreen provides consultation rooms for our services which have moved to enable the first phase of the redevelopment of the St Pancras site to begin. Evergreen’s 14 rooms will be used by our Core Team, Complex Depression, Anxiety and Trauma service, Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder service and iCope.  Dr Vincent Kirchner, Chief Medical Officer, said: “Our St Pancras Transformation programme will deliver modern, purpose-built in-patient and community facilities for service users. The programme also facilitates Oriel, a new purpose-built centre of excellence for eye care, research, and education on the St Pancras site. “The opening of Evergreen will enable clinical services to remain on the St Pancras site for as long as possible. This will ensure continuity of care for service users and enable our staff to work from a single location.”

Consultation website now live

We are working with King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership on a vision to redevelop the St Pancras Hospital site to provide exceptional clinical care in modern, accessible and sustainable mental health facilities, and deliver a place that is accessible and welcoming to all. A consultation has been launched to seek views on the plans, including a dedicated website which can be viewed by clicking the link here

Temporary changes to MHCAS

From 25 October, there will be temporary changes to our Mental Health Crisis Assessment Service (MHCAS). Advice for those needing urgent help is available on our website by clicking here We have started to move services from our St Pancras Hospital site to enable the first phase of Oriel to begin. The Oriel build will cover the area where MHCAS is currently located. As a result, the current MHCAS building at St Pancras Hospital needs to close and an interim model of care put in place.  Looking ahead, planning permission and funding have been approved for a new purpose-built MHCAS facility at our Highgate Mental Health Centre.

Find out more

• For more information about the St Pancras Transformation programme and opportunities to have your say visit our Trust website.
• If you have questions, please email stpancrastransformation@candi.nhs.uk  
• Our Transformation team are happy to attend local meetings and discuss the plans. Please request via email to stpancrastransformation@candi.nhs.uk 
• Our ambition is to be London’s greenest NHS mental health trust and to achieve net zero carbon by 2030. Find out more about our plans and meet the team behind them by watching this short video.