Mental health centre funding update set for New Year

IT will likely be January before more clarity will be provided on whether the vital new £143 million Birch Hill mental health facility at Bush Road in Antrim can be funded by the Department of Health.

The Northern Health and Social Care Trust Board heard last Thursday that the Department’s capital plan will be available in the New Year, which will help inform a timeline.

However it is understood that there are concerns over the 2026/27 budget position, and with total bids for various projects exceeding the available budget, new or partially committed projects are likely to continue to remain stalled.

In the meantime, Dr Petra Corr, Divisional Director of Mental Health, Learning Disability and Community Wellbeing, told a meeting of the Northern Trust Board last week that enabling works are being requested, so that if funding is granted, the project will be ready to move forward without any further delays.

The proposed 134-bed facility is intended to replace the existing Holywell Hospital in Antrim, which is in a poor state of repair, and the Ross Thomson Unit, an 18-bed acute admission ward at Causeway Hospital in Coleraine.

Planning permission for the Birch Hill Mental Health Centre was granted by Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council in June 2024, with completion expected by late 2028.

The Trust had been due to receive the building for commissioning on 31 December 2029, already delayed from the original schedule.

The historic 1898 Holywell Hospital ‘asylum’, which currently houses around 400 staff members and provides just over 100 inpatient beds, is continuing to fall into dilapidation, with workers saying the original building and surrounding Tobernaveen wards, added in the 1950s, are not suitable for the treatment or accommodation of mental health patients in the modern era.

Dr Corr also called for more tangible support from the Health Minister Mike Nesbitt, adding: “The Minister has continued to voice his support for the mental health service, and we would be keen to see that carried through in actions,” she added.

Mr Nesbitt has been to see the conditions at Holywell for himself. In a statement to the Antrim Guardian this week, the Health Minister said: “While I remain hopeful, my ability to commit to funding capital projects, including the Birch Hill Centre for Mental Health, will depend on the Department of Health capital allocation from the Budget process.

“The draft Budget outcome is not expected to be confirmed until later this year and will inform the development of the Department of Health capital investment plan which will set out the projects to be taken forward over the next ten years.”

Meanwhile, the Trust has warned that it may be “difficult to provide all services whilst managing the expected increase in demand for unscheduled or critical care” at it launched its’ 2025/26 winter plan.

Gillian Traub, Director of Operations, said that staff are ‘very anxious’ about the winter months and that planning commenced in August, in anticipation of an increase in pressure onhospital and community services.

She said that the Trust will have the additional support of 35 beds in the independent sector which have been block-booked to assist with patient discharges, to help flow at Antrim Area Hospital.

The Trust is also establishing a ‘Hospital at Home’ service to provide an alternative to hospital admission.

It will provide care to older frail patients in their own residence for some conditions which would normally require them to receive care in hospital.

The plan will see GPs identify those patients who could benefit from the service of a multi-disciplinary team which provides a “wrap-around” plan to allow the patient to continue living at home.

The Trust said that “dedicated consultant input will prevent unnecessary emergency department and acute hospital admissions and avoid premature admission to long term care”.