Care system NHS Scotland Emergency department No | Hospital type Psychiatric Beds 140 | |
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Location Carstairs, South Lanarkshire, Scotland Website | ||
The State Hospital (also known as Carstairs Hospital, or simply Carstairs) is a psychiatric hospital providing care and treatment in conditions of high security for around 140 patients from Scotland and Northern Ireland who need to be detained in hospital under conditions of special security that can only be provided by the State Hospital. The hospital is located near the village of Carstairs, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
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The hospital is run by the State Hospitals Board for Scotland which is a public body accountable to the First Minister of Scotland through the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. They are a Special Health Board, part of the NHS Scotland and the only hospital of its kind within Scotland. Following a restructuring of secure psychiatric services in Scotland a new hospital is being constructed on the current site at a cost of £60m.
The Board and the Hospital has around 700 staff.
History
Carstairs Hospital was constructed during 1936–39. Although it was planned and financed as a facility for "mental defectives", it was first used as an Army hospital, during World War II. The Army relinquished control of the hospital in 1948, when it opened as the State Institution for Mental Defectives. On 1 October 1957 there was a large transfer of 90 criminally insane prisoners from the criminal lunatic department at HM Prison Perth to Carstairs, and this new combined unit became the State Mental Hospital.
In 1994 the State Hospitals (Scotland) Act 1994 enabled management of the hospital to be transferred from the Secretary of State for Scotland to the Scottish NHS, coming under the control of the State Hospitals Board for Scotland.
Security
The hospital has an alarm system that is activated if any patient escapes to alert people in the vicinity, including those in the surrounding town of Lanark, and local villages such as Ravenstruther. This alarm system is based on World War II air-raid sirens, and a two-tone alarm sounds across the whole area in the event of an escape. The system is tested on the third Thursday of every month at 1300hrs when the all clear siren, consisting of three 30 second blasts, sounds.
One infamous incident of a break out happened in 1976, when two patients, Thomas McCulloch and Robert Mone, murdered a nurse, a patient and a police officer with axes in an escape attempt.