A £1.6 MILLION cutting edge mental health facility in Bradford has shut less than 18 months after it opened because of a lack of patients, the Telegraph & Argus can reveal.

Bradford MPs and councillors are demanding answers, with one senior councillor branding it “a big waste of money.”

Daisy Hill Intensive Therapy Centre (DHITC), designed to treat women with severe and complex mental health problems, was originally hailed as the first facility of its kind in the country, offering a treatment therapy programme unrivalled in the UK.

But the T&A has discovered that the state-of-the-art facility, within the grounds of Lynfield Mount, struggled to fill beds from the start and has been empty since its last patients left in September. The funding to create it had come from Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust’s cash reserves and the facility generated an income of about £877,766, the Trust has said.

Chairman of Bradford Council’s health and social care overview and scrutiny committee, Cllr Vanda Greenwood (Labour, Windhill and Wrose) said: “It sounds to me like this was a big waste of money to be honest, but apart from that, shouldn’t the Care Trust have told the health and wellbeing board at the very least and I would have thought I should have known as chairman?”

She added it was a great concern and said: “There are questions to be asked on both the financial implications and the below expected number of patient levels.

“It is the committee’s responsibility to ask these questions on behalf of the general public and we will be calling Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust before us as soon as possible.”

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Caring for mental illness is rightly being given the attention it deserves but that hasn’t stopped this cash being wasted. It’s crucial that when big, expensive projects like this are approved that they are fully thought through, so that taxpayers do not have their hard-earned money squandered.”

Foundation Trust chiefs, approached by the T&A following an anonymous tip off, have admitted the unit stopped taking in new patients in April, stating occupancy levels were significantly lower than required to achieve financial balance since it opened in June 2015. They said an alternative use for the unit was now being considered following a review by the Trust board, as part of its wider service development programme.

Bradford South MP Judith Cummins said: “This announcement is very troubling and begs far more questions than it offers answers. I want to know what has happened in the last 18 months that warrants this closure.

“Has the demand and need for what on the face of it should be a valuable and oversubscribed service evaporated or are there other factors at play that have caused this situation?”

Bradford West MP Naz Shah said: “This raises serious concerns as to both the use of public money and the way in which the decision to close the intensive therapy unit has been reached.”

Shipley MP Philip Davies said: “It’s bizarre. Before you open something like that you would be sure there was sufficient demand for it.”

Councillor Jackie Whiteley, Bradford Conservative’s group spokesman for health and wellbeing, added: “I am surprised it has closed so soon because it was supposed to support women with complex mental health issues from across the whole district. It is unlikely that the need has disappeared so I would like to know where they are receiving treatment and is this within or outside of the district?”

Debra Gilderdale, interim director of operations and nursing at Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The decision to open the centre was made early in 2013. Like every NHS Trust, we could not have foreseen the current financial challenges being experienced across the NHS and the change in national policy to treat people closer to home. We took the difficult decision to close the 12-bed unit because unfortunately it had experienced below expected occupancy levels since its opening.”

The specialist service was meant to take in referrals from both the Bradford district and out-of-area patients providing therapies five days a week. The website created to appeal to private health care providers to refer people to the ward has been removed.

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