The new £25m mental health hospital will set new standards for mental health care in the UK and was officially opened by Mersey Care.
The hospital, built over 18 months, was led by developer Liverpool & Sefton Health Partnership (LSHP) Ltd.
LSHP was set up under the NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme for the Liverpool and Sefton areas, to deliver new health facilities through a public private partnership.
On the site of the former Walton Hospital, Clock View was opened at a ceremony hosted by Mersey Care’s Chairman Beatrice Fraenkel and Chief Executive Joe Rafferty. It was attended by board members of LSHP, MPs, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and Mayors of Sefton and Knowsley, ward councillors, health partners, patients’ representatives and staff.
Clock View – named after the famous local landmark clock tower which overlooks the site – is a new generation of mental health hospitals providing therapeutic environments and approaches to care designed to improve recovery, wellbeing and reduce lengths of stay.
It will provide short-stay treatment for local people with a range of mental health issues including depression, anxiety and dementia, offering 85 individual bedrooms all with en-suite. It will also provide the city’s new psychiatric intensive care unit for those most in distress in need of urgent inpatient care.
It will also be the base for a new local assessment and immediate care service that provides emergency, urgent and routine assessment, enabling better support for people between inpatient and community services.
Humphrey Claxton, chairman of LSHP said: "Since we started LSHP a little over ten years ago we have managed more than £120 million of investment and developed 15 new health facilities in Liverpool and Sefton, of which Clock View is largest. The hospital sets a new standard for mental health care, designed to promote wellbeing, from the use of natural light, to the high standards of accommodation and secure outdoor areas.
"It has been a pleasure to work in close collaboration with Mersey Care to develop such a leading new facility, a facility which has given the local economy a huge boost, creating hundreds of jobs for local people, and acting as a catalyst for growth in North Liverpool.
"Across our entire property portfolio of 15 new health facilities we have completed projects with delays of no more than a few days, with no cost overruns. I think this reflects great credit on the way we work with our health partners, to deliver these buildings on time and to budget."
Mersey Care’s chief executive Joe Rafferty said: “People in Merseyside deserve the very best mental health services in the country and we are proud that Clock View makes a bold statement that second rate facilities are simply just not good enough.
“Clock View is a beacon that will help tackle the stigma associated with mental ill-health because it is a hospital where every patient has their own room with en-suite bathroom and it will provide the highest standards of care within a therapeutic environment – all designed to promote recovery.”
Clock View will become fully operational by early March this year and replaces an existing adult mental health inpatient unit called Stoddart House, which will be handed back to Aintree University Hospital as part of the agreement to purchase the Walton site.
The new hospital has been designed to provide light and airy spaces, individual bedrooms of the highest standards for privacy and dignity, in addition to communal activity areas and safe inner courtyard gardens to aid people’s recovery.
There is also learning and education spaces; a café; a range of individual and group therapy and activity spaces, space for self-help, advocacy and voluntary organisations; spiritual space; family visiting rooms and meeting rooms, all contained in attractive low level buildings surrounded by landscaping.
Farrans Heron Joint Venture (FHJV) was the construction company who worked with LSHP on the build, employing a total of 1,500 tradesmen during the build, with 100 local people employed for an average of six months.
