DETAILED plans which appear likely to threaten the future of Calderstones Hospital will be published in about six months, MPs have been told.

Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, confirmed the ‘time has come’ for large institutions that care for people with learning disabilities, following an independent review into the sector.

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As reported last month, Sir Stephen Bubb, who conducted the review for the national body, has called for large facilities such as Calderstones, in Whalley, to be shut down.

Sir Stephen appeared before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee this week, along with Mr Stevens, who said: “In general, we see a problem in the fact that the Midlands and the North are much more dominated by this institutional model of care.

“I am afraid that the time has come to say that some of the remaining facilities are going to have to close and care will have to be re-provided in a more radical way.

“On the back of the report that Stephen has given us and the points made by the families, we must use the next 12 to 24 months to chart out what that substantial transition programme is going to look like for those facilities.”

He did not name individual organisations, but said there would be further details published in about six months.

Sir Stephen’s report said patients with learning disabilities or autism should be moved to smaller units or community-based care.

Calderstones Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Mitton Road facility, has questioned whether Sir Stephen’s recommendations are appropriate for patients in secure units.

And Tim Ellis, who represents members of the Unison union at the trust, said: “I don’t think Calderstones can be included in this programme because the people there have come through the criminal justice system, and they need to be in a secure and proper setting.

“If you were to move the patients into the community you’d have to recreate that environment, and I think there will be a very strong argument about public and client safety.”

Calderstones has about 220 patients in secure units, and employs more than 1,000 people across its sites.

Calderstones was once the centre of Lancashire’s institutional care, with three hospitals, Brockhall Certified Institution, Langho Epileptic Colony and Calderstones Certified Institution.

in close proximity. Although the project was originally envisaged as an asylum in 1903 the first building was taken over as a military hospital and renamed Queen Mary’s Military Hospital in 1915 where 56,800 Allied servicemen were treated from 14 April 1915 until 31 June 1920.