By Latifa Yedroudj, Junior Local Democracy Reporter
Councillors have questioned managers of a Nottinghamshire high-security psychiatric hospital over its progress following a damning inspection report.
Rampton Hospital was rated ‘inadequate’ in 2023 after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found several serious problems.
It said at the time there were concerns over staffing numbers, staff supervision, training and medicine.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the facility near Retford, has produced a progress report after inspectors visited the hospital again in October 2024.
Inspectors say the hospital, which has around 340 patients, has now made “significant improvements” since and addressed recommendations.
The trust’s own progress report says six out of seven reconsiderations made by the CQC have now been completed.
Councillors met at Nottinghamshire County Council’s health scrutiny committee meeting on Monday (January 7) to discuss the progress.
The trust, which runs several Nottinghamshire mental health facilities and services besides Rampton, was also put into the national spotlight when it emerged Nottingham attacks killer Valdo Calocane had been in its care several times.
Calocane was convicted of manslaughter after fatally stabbing Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, along with Ian Coates, 65 in Nottingham in June 2023.
Calocane’s mental illness began in 2019 and he had been detained under the Mental Health Act at a psychiatric unit in Nottingham four times since May 2020. On each occasion, he was discharged – the final time in February 2022, more than a year before the killings.
The families of the victims have questioned the care he received before the killings, with Barnaby’s mother, Emma Webber, backing a public inquiry into any failings that may have occurred before he was released onto the streets with severe psychosis.
Cllr Johno Lee questioned the trust’s record on protecting patients, families and the public.
During the meeting, hospital bosses explained the trust cares for patients who are serious criminal offenders, and others who are “high risk” – but have no criminal convictions.
Jan Seinser, Executive Director of Partnerships and Strategy at Nottinghamshire Trust said: “I met a recent patient; who came to the ward [at Rampton] and he came from prison. I said, how do you find this? He said ‘I feel like I’ve come home’ because he hadn’t been in a specialist in prison and he felt like he had a community who understood him.”
Cllr Johno Lee questioned what sort of criminals are being transferred to Rampton Hospital – which is not classed as a prison.
He asked in the meeting: “My question is, could you explain the type of criminals and what convictions they would have going to Rampton?”
Ms Seinser said “not every patient” in Rampton has a committed an offence, though it cares for some “very serious violent offenders”.
Diane Hull, Executive Director of Nursing at the trust said many patients are placed in Rampton because of their “risk behaviours” and because they “cannot be cared for safely in any other environment”.
Cllr Lee replied during the meeting: “I’m sure residents would not be aware that people who don’t have convictions are being kept with people who have convictions. Yes we want to keep them safe and have them looked after. But when they get sent to prison, they should be kept away from people.”
After the meeting he added: “Residents like me would be concerned to find out that convicted serious criminals are being cared for in an NHS structure and not prison.”
He added: “This system isn’t working well. If we send people to prison, we want them to be in prison to protect the public.”
Rampton, near Retford, is one of the three high-security hospitals in England and Wales that provides psychiatric care.
