The Complex Case of Cambridgeshire

The sun shone as we converged like the winds, from southeast, north and southwest, although the north wind had a little trouble with a cancelled train at Leeds - though still managed to arrive less than ten minutes late.

Greeted with warmth and hospitality, as well as coffee and tea, we arrived a few miles outside Cambridge on the site of the old Ida Darwin learning disability hospital - which is now a collection of similar looking low-slung brick buildings housing all sorts of different parts of what constitutes a modern mental health service. The once proud and renowned Fulbourn, a major epicentre of the 'unlocking the wards' movement of social psychiatry in the 1950s and 1960s, is now the trust headquarters about a mile away. It was explained to us how the locked wards are now not locked, but are described as having 'controlled access'.

Interestingly, this controlled access comes at a price: staff have small electronic gadgets (black plastic - about the size and shape of a squashed olive) on their key-rings, without which they can go nowhere. Indeed we had to have an official squashed olive carrier with us wherever we went. But we were told that the price of squashed olives is very high - at about £185 each. The squashed olives themselves only cost about £35, but it is the reprogramming of them that bumps the price up. So woe betide anybody who loses their squashed olive!

Interestingly, the whole-county foundation trust which runs it all is learning all it can from the experts of Arizona about 'recovery', and is doing everything it can and should to ensure that it is doing it properly.

We were reminded from time to time that the whole unit was in a state of temporary turmoil, while refurbishment work was being undertaken to construct a 12-bedded ward (controlled access) as an expansion of the service. Perhaps most curious was the fact that a monumentally extensive network of rabbit warrens lies underneath the building works. Apart from whimsical recollections of Chas and Dave, for when the rehoused service needs a team song, thoughts come to mind of the potential underground traffic in both directions. Fluffy bunnies appearing unexpectedly in the midst of art therapy, or gym sessions, or (heaven forbid) the group's cooking sessions - but in the other direction visions of the final scenes of the Sound of Music or even Colditz - overcoming the most controlled access of all!

Continuing the small furry animals theme, one of the rooms where we were offered space to meet people was called the 'hamster room' - though try as we might, we could find no sign nor trace of a single hamster. When we enquired further, we learned that one of the senior staff, on first entering the room, said 'this room smells of hamsters' - and the name stuck. Difficult to work out quite what the lesson is there, but I'm sure there is one!

However, a real animal that we did meet was a small pretty dog - which was sat on the group room sofa when we arrived. It seemed a rather lovely example of how therapeutic people find their relationships with animals, particularly when humans have often failed them. But we suspect that somebody thought it wasn't suitable for dogs to be present when 'the Men from the Ministry' were visiting, so we did not get the chance to make his or her acquaintance before he or she disappeared from the scene - which is rather a shame as the dear thing seemed to be an ideal subject for the 'what would you all like as a photo on the blog?' decision.

But it was not to be, and a picture of the Life Space room, plus a fairy with enormous wings, and the vibrant corridor mural were chosen instead. And the cakes we were offered (but sadly declined!)