WHETHER or not they are being laid on thick as part of the dispute there over staffing levels, the claims made today about dangerous mental patients being housed at - and escaping from - the medium-secure unit at Calderstones Hospital are bound to alarm and worry the community.

For if there is substance to these allegations, it would seem that a unit for accommodating violent offenders who ought to be in high-security hospitals like Rampton or Ashworth is being established by virtual stealth at the less-secure Whalley hospital.

It is claimed that Calderstones is now taking high-risk patients from these places - murderers, rapists and paedophiles - to the extent that it is now home to some of the most dangerous offenders in the country. And, worse, it is alleged that the staff there do not have the numbers or experience to deal with these people. But what is of concern to us is the mixture of contradiction and vagueness in the management's response to these claims - when what is alleged is that the safety of the unit's staff and of the public is being jeopardised for the sake of the income that caring for high-risk patients brings to Calderstones.

Are we to understand that there are no patients at all from Ashworth or Rampton at Calderstones? That is imputed by the management's statement that the Calderstones unit provides facilities for patients who do not need high-security because if they did, it would be to places such as Ashworth and Rampton they would be referred and not Whalley?

Furthermore, the declaration that action was being taken about staffing levels and skills mix, together with the trust's chief executive's admission that there are important issues to be resolved, suggests that there is indeed a problem at Calderstones - and that clear answers are required to the following questions.

Are there high-risk patients at Calderstones? If so, why are they in only a medium-secure unit? Are there patients at the unit who have previously been classed as being in need of high security? Is the trust absolutely confident that this poses no danger to the staff or to the public? Let us have the answers - urgently and without prevarication.

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