Warwick councillors pushing for answers around the likely closure of mental health hospital

Earlier this year, plans to close down Warwick’s mental health hospital for older women were revealed.

Woodloes House, in Woodloes Avenue South, has 15 beds for female mental health patients aged 65 or over but NHS bosses are seeking to cut demand through a new 'Hospital at Home' team that will focus on earlier intervention and recovery in familiar settings.

Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust (CWPT), the body that handles mental health and dementia services for the region, insists the beds will only go once it has been demonstrated that the new plan is working.

The Warwick councillors

Following the announcement, county, district and town councillors for the All Saints and Woodloes ward had conversations with both residents and businesses, with many raising questions and concerns about the proposed closure.

Banding together, the councillors have been seeking answers from the CWPT.

The group is made up of four town councillors – Cllr Oliver Jacques, Cllr Cora-Laine Moynihan, Cllr Jackie Darcy and Cllr Clare Bryan – as well as Warwick District Councillors Claire and Paul Wightman and Cllr Sam Jones, who is a county and district councillor.

The group have now issued a public statement regarding its correspondence with the CWPT.

The statement

Speaking on behalf of the group, Cllr Oliver Jacques, has provided the following statement regarding Woodloes House.

Here is the statement in full:

Since March this year when news of the possible closure of Woodloes House broke (Warwick mental health hospital earmarked for closure) I and fellow councillors started to receive questions and concerns from residents and business-owners on the Woodloes.

In May, we heard informally that Woodloes House will close in June 2026, with patients soon to be moved out.

So on May 15, we wrote a collective letter directly to the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust (CWPT) responsible for Woodloes House, asking questions about the possible closure of Woodloes House and the impact it would have for patients, their families and the wider community.

We received a reply on May 22 containing partial responses to some (but certainly not all) of our questions, and an offer to meet with the executive team. We have since arranged to meet on July 8.

In our letter we asked CWPT to confirm if Woodloes House is set to close in June. Their response was that the new Hospital at Home (HaH) service is to be made operational in June before being launched in full, from July 1.

Then patients will be “individually assessed and treated” and “their discharge will take place when clinically appropriate as is standard practice”.

They explained that from then on, the beds at Woodloes House are to remain ‘available’, although just not ‘occupied’. We are left wondering what the difference is between a bed being closed, yet available, but never occupied?!

Surely any operational costs gained by transferring patients out to the HaH service would be outweighed by the costs of continuing to keep Woodloes House open and unoccupied.

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) had stated previously at a Warwickshire County Council meeting on February 25 that “no beds would close unless there was full confidence that the Hospital at Home team could safely meet the needs of individuals who could remain at home” (p.1 HOSC Feb) and that “any decision would be dependent on assurance work underpinned by key performance indicators”.

In our letter we asked CWPT what those key performance indicators are that they will use to make the decision on closure.

We also asked how CWPT would propose to re-open Woodloes House, should the outcomes of HaH provision prove to be unsatisfactory. In their response they did not provide an answer to either question.

Also, despite rumours that Woodloes House could be repurposed as staff accommodation for the South Warwickshire Foundation Trust, CWPT denied in their response that there is any agreement, informal or formal to do so.

CWPT further reiterated their position to us that the new HaH service will deliver better outcomes as it “enables patients to remain connected to their families and communities, while still receiving high-quality clinical care. It also works alongside voluntary and community partners to support wider well-being and address loneliness.”

We are sceptical, however, that the HaH service will improve loneliness.

We asked how can a service that will operate only between the hours of 8am and 8pm each day, and only for the first two weeks after the patient has been transferred home, improve loneliness?

CWPT chose not to answer this specific question and instead gave a generalised response similar to that given to the HOSC Committee in February.

Also, we understand that for the HaH team to provide continuous care to patients at home between those times, it would require an incredibly well-resourced team.

Therefore, we asked CWPT directly how many actual visits each patient will receive each day or each week during the 8am to 8pm window.

Again, no response.

It is important to remember that the impacted patients have what are termed ‘functional’ illnesses (FI), meaning mental illnesses other than identifiable brain conditions such as dementia, infections, brain injury or tumours.

The term ‘functional illness’ applies to psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorders, among others.

As such we questioned in our letter whether these patients in a domestic setting would be able to engage well with conventional community-based support networks, as claimed in February by CWPT.

Under the new scheme CWPT say nine patients with FI conditions and six with dementia will be placed onto the HaH service in the community.

We asked CWPT how confident they can be that FI patients will be able to engage productively with community voluntary organisations who themselves may not be accustomed to, or trained in, managing the symptoms and behaviours of FI patients? Again, there was no specific response from CWPT over these concerns.

Therefore, when we meet with the executive team on July 8, we look forward to obtaining clearer answers to these questions on behalf of patients, their families and the wider community.

The CWPT’s response to the councillors’ statement

A spokesperson for Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust said: “The Trust welcomes and values the scrutiny and challenge provided by councillors and local stakeholders.

“It is essential that we continue to have open, constructive dialogue as this important development progresses.

“We have therefore arranged a meeting with councillors, where we will discuss their concerns in more detail.”

The CWPT added it currently does not have a date for the closure of Woodloes House as it will “only close when assured that the Hospital at Home service is meeting the needs of our patients”.

The ‘Hospital to Home’ service

This month, the CWPT announced its new ‘Hospital at Home’ service was “due to become operational in August 2026” and that it is “designed to provide clinical support at home as an alternative to hospital admission and aims to improve outcomes, promote independence, and support faster recovery for older adults.”

It added: “This model is part of a wider commitment to strengthening care pathways and ensuring that people receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time and bridges the gap between Community Mental Health teams, Home Treatment teams and inpatient services, offering a new, responsive service, meeting the needs of older adults who are experiencing mental illness.

The trust said the care provided “will be individually tailored, with patients receiving up to four visits per day depending on clinical need”.

It added: “Multidisciplinary teams will work closely together to provide safe, effective and compassionate care, while inpatient services across Coventry and Warwickshire will continue to be available where required.”