West London forensic services provide a range of medium and low secure services, specialist rehabilitation and community forensic mental health services for men and women.
Service users may have mental disorders, challenging behaviours and specialist rehabilitation needs. Some come to the service from courts and prisons.
Offering comprehensive multidisciplinary care, the service manages the care of service users, and safety of those that use the service as well as the wider community. This is especially important for those who are preparing for less secure environments in the future, or for integration back into the community. The service is based at St Bernard’s Hospital in Ealing.
Staff are trained to integrate risk assessment with recovery principles, to provide a safe and therapeutic environment. The multidisciplinary team includes:
- Specialist clinicians/psychiatrists
- Nurses
- Psychologists
- Pharmacists
- Social workers
- Occupational therapists
- Arts therapists.
The service also offers community forensic services, assessment and follow-up work, as well as a specialist drug and alcohol support services.
What are forensic mental health services
Forensic mental health services are provided for people:
- With a mental disorder (including neurodevelopmental disorders)
- Who pose, or have posed, risks to others
- Where that risk is usually related to their mental disorder.
They may be placed in hospitals - particularly secure hospitals, like those provided by our forensic services.
The service provides assessment, treatment and rehabilitation for male and female service users who need care in a medium or low secure environment.
Adult inpatient beds are provided across 5 facilities at St Bernard’s Hospital in Ealing.
Three Bridges Medium Secure Unit
Medium secure care for men, including Thames Lodge and Medway Lodge.
Our low secure men’s facilities are provided from Butler House and the Tony Hillis Wing.
Butler House
This is a low secure pre-discharge unit for men.
Telephone: 020 8354 8933
Tony Hillis Wing
This offers low secure care for men in the following wards:
- Barron ward
- Derby ward
- Solaris ward
- Tennyson ward
Orchard unit
Medium secure and medium enhanced secure care for women.
Visits must be approved in advance. Visitors won’t be allowed into the unit if the visit hasn’t been booked in advance.
The medium secure facilities take service users from prisons, the courts and special hospitals.
The low secure facilities also take patients from local mental health services and psychiatric intensive care units (PICUs).
The forensic outreach service provides aftercare and support for men and women aged 18 and over who are returning to the community from forensic inpatient care.
This service is for service users who are:
- Discharged from inpatient forensic services
- Referred from other sources.
Find out more about forensic community services
Rehabilitation
We help rehabilitate people being cared for in the inpatient forensic services. This helps prepare them to leave the secure setting of the service.
Our multidisciplinary and holistic approach helps people with very complex needs to:
- Rehabilitate back into society
- Increase their life skills
- Get back to work, education or volunteering roles.
Some people are discharged earlier than they might have been because of the support we can provide in the community.
We get to know people in their own home setting. This helps us make sure they continue to live safely in the community and don’t need to return to hospital.
Follow up
We follow up all restricted clients discharged from our secure services.
We’re developing innovative criminal justice teams to provide:
- Community forensic psychiatry input
- Diversion services to the local courts, police liaison, probation clinics and prison liaison
.
We aim to improve access to care for mentally disordered offenders and ensure they receive the most appropriate care and treatment as quickly and as efficiently as possible. This is very important in supporting recovery.
The service is based in St Bernard’s Hospital, Ealing.
Referral information
People are referred to this team through West London Forensic Services.
