Friday brief: Call for answers as psychiatric hospital had 125 safeguarding incidents reported in just four months
Plus, a round up of this week's news from across our county
125 safeguarding referrals were made by St Andrew’s Hospital to the local authority in just four months this summer, prompting calls for answers from public bodies in Northamptonshire.
Within its 96 pages, the recently published Care Quality Commission report, which rated the psychiatric hospital inadequate, has revealed that 114 suspected safeguarding incidents occurred within secure wards between the beginning of May and end of August this year and a further 11 were made concerning incidents in the wards that look after adults with acquired brain injuries.
The incidents included self harm; abuse by staff to patients; physical violence and aggression and security concerns. 65 were rated as low or no harm, 48 were recorded as moderate harm and one was rated as major harm.
The report makes for extremely grim reading and repeatedly emphasises a closed culture within the hospital, which since the summer has been prevented from admitting new patients. A serious incident is referred to, which involved 17 staff members, who the CQC criticised for not raising any concerns. Allegations of physical, sexual and financial abuse are also referred to.
An internal and police investigation is currently ongoing into incidents at St Andrews, and police confirmed this week nine people in total have been arrested, although no-one has been charged.
A spokesperson for the charity said:
“St Andrew’s cares for people with highly complex mental health needs, many of whom have faced difficult life circumstances before admission. We make safeguarding referrals on behalf of patients, including incidents that occurred before they came to us or involve individuals outside our care. In fact, most safeguarding referrals do not involve our staff.”
Following publication of the report, Labour councillor Sally Keeble has said she considers the local authority, West Northamptonshire Council to have failed in its duties to protect adults in its community.
She has asked questions within the council chamber, but has not received responses.
She said:
“It is beyond shocking that people at St Andrews are being treated like this behind closed doors. West Northamptonshire Council has a duty to protect vulnerable adults and children in its area and appears to have failed.
“The rate of reported incidents is the equivalent of one a day. In addition the CQC discovered six incidents that should have been reported but weren’t. That begs questions about what else has gone undiscovered.
“The key public institutions in Northamptonshire have been involved in St Andrews and have questions to answer. West Northamptonshire Council must explain what it has done about the safeguarding reports it has received from St Andrews and what steps it is taking to ensure people there are safe.”
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has a statutory duty to ensure adults are safe and is the body that safeguarding complaints are made to.
Of the 114 complaints made concerning the forensic inpatients services, 36 made it to a section 42 enquiry stage, with 16 of these being taken over by the local authority.
Melanie Williams, executive director of people services at WNC said:
“St Andrews provides specialist care for people with highly complex needs from across the country. While this makes standard benchmarking of safeguarding challenging, the safety and wellbeing of those in their care is always our priority.
“We acknowledge that there have been quality concerns at St Andrews Healthcare. Through our Adult Safeguarding Board, we work in partnership to ensure the highest safeguarding standards are maintained. This includes supporting healthcare providers, such as St Andrews, to adopt best practice and protect the individuals in their care.
“The council continues to actively work with partners to monitor safeguarding and support improvements in care standards.”
The Northamptonshire Adults Safeguarding Board (NSAB), which is made up of public bodies including the local authorities, health providers, probation and the police, has a duty under the Care Act. It says its main focus is ‘to ensure that safeguarding arrangements work effectively so that adults are able to live their lives free from abuse or neglect.’
The NSAB is chaired by Northants chief constable Ivan Balhatchet. We asked the police force whether any action is being taken by the board following the CQC findings and await an answer.
Cllr Keeble also wants answers from the departed chair of the board of trustees and would like her Labour MP colleagues for Northampton to raise the matter at a national level.
She said:
“The former Chair of Trustees at St Andrews, the former MP and government minister Paul Burstow, who stepped down last month, must also answer for what happened at the hospital under his watch.
“I am also raising the matter urgently with our MPs to ensure there is full national scrutiny of this.”
Paul Burstow had been chair of the board since 2020. He left in November and has been replaced by interim chair Steve Gray.
NN Journal asked this week whether the chief executive Dr Vivienne McVey, who was appointed in 2022 is still in post and has the confidence of the board and we were told she was and she has.
The charity said:
“We acknowledge that care at our Northampton hospital hasn’t always met the standards every patient deserves, and we are sorry to those affected. We reported these issues to the CQC immediately and are working with the NHS and CQC to deliver urgent improvements.
“Our action plan includes stronger staff training, new leadership, external expertise to foster an open culture, and reducing agency staff to near zero. We’re also reviewing services to focus on complex mental health care for those who need us most.
“While change takes time, patients are already seeing early signs of improvement.”
We also contacted the Charity Commission, which has a responsibility to regulate charities and investigate malpractice.
It said:
“We have assessed further information provided as part of a serious incident report submitted by St Andrew’s Healthcare. We are satisfied, based on the information available, that there is no further role for us as regulator at this time, though we expect the charity’s trustees to keep us informed of any relevant developments.”
The CQC, which has undertaken inspections twice this year, says more action could be taken if St Andrews does not improve quickly.
Craig Howarth from the CQC said:
“We have already taken action to restrict new admissions to the service to ensure St Andrew’s can focus on ensuring immediate improvements are made to people already receiving services. We have now imposed further conditions on the service to ensure those required improvements are made and we can monitor the delivery of them, and we won’t hesitate to take further enforcement action if improvements aren’t made or sustained. “
The charity announced it would close Workbridge, a long standing centre for adults with learning difficulties, this summer, due to financial issues. Its deputy director said at the time that the future of the entire charity was being examined.
By Sarah Ward
*This article was amended on Saturday, December 20 as St Andrews’s has pointed out the safeguarding referrals were not lodged against it. We are happy to correct the earlier introduction of the article.
Other NN news
The fight against a controversial warehouse development in the Northamptonshire countryside could end up in court, after campaigners vowed to launch a legal claim to challenge the council’s approval of the plans.
Local group STAUNCH (Save Titchmarsh, Thrapston And Upper Nene Valley Countryside and Habitats) battled against proposals to build two major warehousing sites on green land next to the Halden’s Parkway industrial estate, Thrapston.
Despite North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) rejecting the first site to the east at Castle Manor Farm – though this was later overturned at appeal – the second site, proposed by IM Properties on the Glebe Land and known as Thrapston Business Park, was given the go-ahead by the local authority.
At the time, STAUNCH chairman Kevin Shapland said the decision had “driven an absolute bulldozer through all of the planning in North Northants”.
The group has since announced that they sent a Judicial Review Pre-Action Protocol Letter to NNC last week, after receiving legal opinion from their barrister that they have a “relatively strong case” to challenge the approval of Thrapston Business Park. It will not challenge the Castle Manor Farm decision as it would require them to raise as much as £80,000 from community donations.
STAUNCH is appealing for donations to the Thrapston challenge on a go fund me page.
It says:
“We are incredibly grateful that our legal team has offered to pursue the judicial review for us on a discounted fee basis but even with this generous support, STAUNCH needs to hit our target in the immediate term to fund this.
“We are down but most definitely not out and a very long way from shovels in the ground. We hope you will feel able to support us.”
In response to the group’s judicial review intention, a spokesperson for IM Properties said its development would help drive economic growth.
A freedom of information request, submitted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, has also revealed that NNC had to pay bills of just over £135,000 for defending its refusal decision of the Castle Manor Farm development, after developer Newlands Ltd took them to appeal.
This included £71,856.68 spent on legal advice, counsel and representation for the appeal, £36,716.26 on planning advisors, and a further £27,295 on hiring out conference rooms at KLV for the 10-day public inquiry.
NNC said:
“The council recognises the importance of the appeal process as a fundamental part of a fair and democratic planning system.
“As the local planning authority, we fully engaged with the recent appeal to ensure the views of the council and our communities were properly represented. While participating in appeals inevitably incurs costs, we always seek to manage these responsibly while safeguarding local interests.
“In this case, we welcome the planning inspector’s acknowledgement of the reasonable and constructive way in which the council approached the process. Although the appeal was ultimately upheld, the inspector did not award costs against the council.
“This means the council will not be required to pay the appellant’s costs in addition to our own legal fees – a positive outcome that reflects our commitment to acting fairly and responsibly throughout.”
The council has also been approached for comment on STAUNCH’s intention to launch a judicial review.
By Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
A group putting up flags in Kettering, has filmed and posted photos of people who have been taking them down, encouraging its followers to ‘have a chat’.
Flags for Kettering, has been hoisting British and English flags on lampposts across the town for a number of months and people against the initiative have been taking them down.
Now in an intimidating move, the anonymous Flags for Kettering FaceBook page has posted the names and photos of their rivals, along with offensive name calling. Some of their 5,000 followers have also made abusive remarks. One of the people targeted said they had made a police statement this morning and were hopeful the police would take action.
Flags for Kettering also made an incorrect statement that a man in his 80s who had been taking down the flags had been cautioned by the police. Police told the Northants Telegraph that this did not happen.
NN Journal contacted the group asking for their identities and the reason why they posted photos of the flag downers and they said ‘residents of Kettering have a right to know who is removing them. Members of the community donated significant amounts of money towards the cost of the flags and it is upsetting for those contributors to see them removed or destroyed.’
They said images were shared to ‘encourage calm, lawful discussion’ and at ‘no point was there any encouragement of abuse, threats of unlawful behaviour.”
Yet, while Kettering folk have a right to know who is taking them down, it seems they do not have a right to know who is putting them up as they refuse to say who they are.
More than 400 people have donated in excess of £7,000 to pay for the flags. The group says receipts have been kept for cash spent.
Northamptonshire Rights & Equality Council (NREC) carried out a survey across North Northamptonshire earlier this autumn which found that many Kettering residents felt the flags were divisive and intimidating.
The organisation has met with North Northamptonshire Council about the situation and has been frustrated by a lack of action.
Chief executive Anjona Roy, said:
“The police, the local authority, knew that there was one group of people driving around at silly o’clock in the morning putting up the flags and another group taking them down.
“They have done nothing about it and this only exacerbates the situation. It really looks like they have no plan and as a result people are feeling scared.”
NN Journal asked the Reform-UK led authority for its stance on the flags issue and it said:
“As a council, we support a strong sense of community. We welcome the sense of national pride presented by some residents.
“Flags on highways structures, such as lamp posts and railings, on the public highway are unauthorised. Where flags of any description create a safety issue, we may have to take them down in the best interest of residents. Given the risks involved, we would ask that members of the public do not take any action to remove flags.
“We would always encourage people to fly flags outside their homes and on their property safely away from the public highway. We would also encourage people not to attempt anything dangerous that would put themselves at risk, like trying to put them up on lamp posts, or covering street furniture that could block visibility for motorists.”
By Sarah Ward
Several weeks after making a public announcement about working together with Corby families concerned about contaminated land in the town and its possible impact on health, North Northamptonshire Council appears to have stalled.
NN Journal has asked the authority on a number of occasions for details of the working group and has not been given any answers.
The results of freshwater water testing by community members in November, will be made public in January. The water samples have been tested for the presence of heavy metals, such as cadmium, Zinc and chromium. The testing was facilitated by national charity Earthwatch.
By Sarah Ward
West Northamptonshire Council is refusing to say how much it is spending on legal advice to challenge the use of three local hotels for asylum seeker accommodation.
The authority announced this week that it has given the home office a 21 day deadline to provide information as it is ‘seeking clarification about their use of the three hotels and requesting information about their current and future requirements.’
WNC, in its role as the local planning authority, believes a breach of planning control may have occurred at the hotels and says the home office letter is the first step in collating information before deciding whether enforcement action is required.
The authority has issued planning contravention notices to the hotels and has not issued foreclosure notices as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage declared would be the case in a parliamentary statement.
But when asked by NN Journal how much the legal action is costing we were told to submit an FOI request. The authority has also refused to name the legal consultants it is using.
By Sarah Ward
Major plans to build a new multi-storey car park, hotel and flats next to Northampton train station have been given the go-ahead.
Network Rail and Blockwork LLP put forward plans to West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) to build on the Castle Station site off Black Lion Hill and bring forward “the second phase of regeneration” of the station area.
The hybrid proposals include a six-storey car park with 854 spaces, cycle and pedestrian access routes, a cycle parking hub, a covered walkway and bays for replacement bus services. Outline approval has also been given to accept the principle of a 100-room hotel and up to 280 flats within the scheme, however this cannot be built out until further reserved matters permission is granted.
The plans returned to a strategic planning committee meeting on Tuesday (December 16), after councillors previously deferred the project in October over concerns it was not “community-focused” and did not do enough to connect the station to wider transport hubs in Northampton.
By Nadia Lincoln
Thank you, NN Journal, for telling us .....as it is!
Keep up the good work for 2026
On the flag payments of £7,000, I doubt if the recipients are a registered charity, so the money would appear to be income. Hopefully, someone is letting HMRC know so that they can pay tax on it.