As mentioned, Highgate East, our brand-new mental health inpatient building opposite our existing inpatient facility in Highgate is now open. 

Our patients will benefit from having access to one of the 78 all single en suite rooms, replacing ageing inpatient facilities at St Pancras Hospital in Camden. They will receive care in a purpose-built environment which will support their recovery and significantly improve the working lives of our staff.

The new building has access to outdoor space from each ward, therapy spaces, plus a sports hall and a new community café.

Jinjer Kandola MBE, our Chief Executive, commented at an event to mark the opening: “The mental health inpatient services moving to Highgate East have previously been 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 de-stigmatise mental health.”

Gavin Pantlin, Construction Director of BAM who built the new facility, said: “This has not been a typical build; the design has been influenced by a wide-ranging team, with a huge focus on wellbeing incorporated in the design, this includes access to outdoor space, quiet areas, access to sports & recreation and a family visiting area.

“Everyone involved can be hugely proud of what they have achieved during the design and construction phase, and we look forward to the facility leaving a legacy for the NHS, the users of the building and the wider local community.”

BBC London’s Health Correspondent, Karl Mercer (left) visited Highgate East to film a report about our new state-of-the-art inpatient facility. 

Karl interviewed service user Nicky Baker, (centre), about how service users have been actively involved in co-producing the building.

He also spoke with Fatima Mahmoud, one of our ward managers, and with myself. You can watch the clip here Highgate East BBC coverage (youtube.com)

On Wednesday 17 April 2024, our Mental Health Crisis Assessment Service (MHCAS) will be relocating from the Peckwater Centre in Camden to a new and improved facility on the Highgate West campus.

When MHCAS transitioned from our St Pancras Hospital site in autumn 2022, as part of the land sale to Moorfields, it was always envisioned that the service would find a permanent home on our Highgate Site. 

The referral process including the telephone number will remain the same.

The new address is: K block, Highgate West Mental Health Centre, Dartmouth Park Hill, London N19 5NX

Find out more about the move here.

We are encouraging veterans along with their families and carers to consider sharing and displaying their creative artwork for a new art exhibition which is being developed by our OpCourage service in collaboration with The Arts Project.

The exhibition will be on display throughout the summer in the art gallery at St Pancras Hospital.  

We are looking for a mix of media including painting, drawing, poetry, origami, sculpture, needlework, sound, music, installation and film. Click here to find out more or apply.

To find out more about how we support Veterans through OpCourage, please click here.

The Brilliant Basics programme is all about making sure our NHS services are excellent. We teamed up with experts by experience from Barnet, Enfield, Haringey NHS trust and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust to figure out what improvements we can make.

We held workshops where service users and carers shared their thoughts, thank you to those of you who were involved. Together, we came up with ideas to improve things like care planning and communication. Carers also mentioned they want to be more involved and supported.

After the workshops, we asked more people for their opinions through surveys. We found out what areas need the most attention and what we're already doing well.

One big idea is to make sure service users' strengths are at the centre of their care plans, and that communication is positive. Carers want to be part of the care planning too and to have their needs recognised. Service users want to be more involved in deciding what happens during their sessions with staff.

We also learned that it's important to keep listening to feedback and let everyone know what changes we're making. We want to make sure that people with lived experience, like peer workers, have a say in improving our services.

Now, we're working on putting these ideas into action. We'll keep you updated on how things progress

If you want to be involved in the Brilliant Basics work, email engagement.experience@candi.nhs.uk to register on our involvement register