Cygnet Health Care Launches New Mental Health Service For Children And Adolescents In Coventry

Hospital named in honour of “caring and dedicated” support worker

A new state-of-the-art mental health hospital dedicated to children and adolescents opens in Coventry next month.

Cygnet Health Care is launching Cygnet Joyce Parker Hospital, named after a former care worker, to offer support to young people aged between 12 and 18 with mental health issues. Specialist health care teams will work in psychiatric intensive care and low secure environments with the aim of helping young people stabilise their condition and return home as soon as possible.

The opening of the new service in Lansdowne Street, Coventry extends Cygnet Health Care’s national network of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) into the West Midlands and responds to rising demand for mental health care services. Mental health problems affect about 1 in 10 children and young people, and include depression, anxiety and conduct disorder.

Mermaid Ward, which will open in October, will provide a 10-bed CAMHS psychiatric intensive care service with a two-bed emergency place of safety suite for young people experiencing severe mental illness.

Young people will be able to continue their education through an on-site Ofsted registered school, Summit school.

Another ward, Dragon Ward, which opens in early 2021, will provide a low secure service for young people who may need a longer stay. It offers a care and treatment pathway for individuals who may have complex mental health issues and whose needs and risk are such they need to be supported in this environment. Dragon Ward will also be able to treat young people with co-morbid disordered eating as part of their illness, and specialist eating disorder clinicians will collaborate with other healthcare teams to support effective treatment and recovery of the young people.

Paul Bentham, Cygnet’s CAMHS Operations Director, who will lead the new service, said: “The approach we’ve taken is genuinely innovative and we’ve involved people with personal experience of mental health problems, as well as carers and young people from Cygnet’s other CAMHS services in its development. The names of the wards and the school setting came from these young people. It is our aim is to create a high-quality service that will be emulated for the way it is helping young people on the road to recovery.

“We are very proud to be doing this in the West Midlands.”

The hospital is named in honour of Cygnet Support Worker Joyce Parker who died earlier this year. Joyce, 61, was a mother of five and a grandmother, and worked at Cygnet Meadow Mews, a community residential service for men with neuropsychiatric or neurodegenerative conditions in Tipton, West Midlands.

Jacqueline Johnson, a former colleague of Joyce’s and a manager at the Tipton hospital, said: “Joyce worked in care most of her life and was absolutely brilliant with patients and residents. She was so caring, and her dedication and work ethic was amazing.”

“We will always remember her for how she helped new people coming to Cygnet. Because she was a bit older, she very supportive of new staff and was a brilliant member of the team. She got on with everyone. Nothing was too much trouble.

“We were all thrilled when Cygnet suggested naming the new service in Coventry after Joyce. When we told her family what we wanted to do to remember her, they were amazed. It was a very emotional conversation, and it brought tears to my eyes.”