Broadmoor Hospital
Encyclopedia
Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...

 at Crowthorne
Crowthorne
Crowthorne is also a suburb of Johannesburg, South AfricaCrowthorne is a village and civil parish in the Bracknell Forest district of south-eastern Berkshire. It has a population of 6,711...

 in the Borough of Bracknell Forest
Bracknell Forest
Bracknell Forest is a unitary authority and borough in Berkshire in southern England. It covers the towns of Bracknell, North Ascot, Sandhurst, Crowthorne and surrounding villages and hamlets.-History:...

 in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is the best known of the three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, the other two being Ashworth
Ashworth Hospital
Ashworth Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital at Maghull in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England.Ashworth is one of only three high-security specialist psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales, along with Rampton and Broadmoor, that exist to work with people who...

  and Rampton
Rampton Secure Hospital
Rampton Secure Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital near the village of Woodbeck between Retford and Rampton in the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire, England...

. Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 has a similar institution at Carstairs
Carstairs
The name Carstairs refers to a pair of villages located some 4–5 miles east of the town of Lanark in the administrative region of South Lanarkshire in southern Scotland....

, officially known as The State Hospital
State Hospital for Scotland and Northern Ireland
The State Hospital for Scotland and Northern Ireland is a psychiatric hospital providing care and treatment in conditions of high security for around 140 patients from Scotland and Northern Ireland who need to be detained in hospital under conditions of special security that can only be provided...

 but often called Carstairs Hospital, which serves Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Broadmoor complex houses about 260 patients, all of whom are men since the female service closed with most of the women moving to a new service in Southall in September 2007, a few moving to the national high secure service for women at Rampton and a few elsewhere. At any one time there are also approximately 36 patients on trial leave at other units. Most of the patients there suffer from severe mental illness; many also have personality disorder
Personality disorder
Personality disorders, formerly referred to as character disorders, are a class of personality types and behaviors. Personality disorders are noted on Axis II of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM-IV-TR of the American Psychiatric Association.Personality disorders are...

s. Most have either been convicted of serious crimes, or been found unfit to plead in a trial for such crimes. The average (arithmetic mean
Arithmetic mean
In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean, often referred to as simply the mean or average when the context is clear, is a method to derive the central tendency of a sample space...

) stay for the total population is about six years, but this figure is skewed by some patients who have stayed for over 30 years; most patients stay for considerably less than six years.

The catchment area for the hospital underwent some rationalisation of the London area in the early twenty-first century, and now serves all of the NHS
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...

 Regions: London, Eastern, South East, South West.

One of the therapies available is the arts, and patients are encouraged to participate in the Koestler
Koestler Trust
The Koestler Trust or award scheme,is a charity which helps prison inmates and detained psychiatric patients in the UK to express themselves creatively. The trust promotes the arts in special institutions, encouraging creativity and the acquisition of new skills as a means to rehabilitation...

 Awards Scheme.

History

The hospital was previously known as the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum; the change of name reflects a change in attitude towards mental illness, criminals, and the word "asylum".

The hospital was built to a design by Sir Joshua Jebb
Joshua Jebb
Sir Joshua Jebb was a Royal Engineer and the British Surveyor-General of convict prisons.He participated in the Battle of Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain during the War of 1812, and surveyed a route between Ottawa River and Kingston where Lake Ontario flows into Saint Lawrence River...

, an Officer of the Corps of Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....

, and covers 210,000 square metres (53 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s) within its secure perimeter. It received its first female patients on 27 May 1863, with the first male patients arriving on 27 February 1864. The original building plan of six blocks for men and two for women was completed in 1868. A further male block was built in 1902.

Due to overcrowding at Broadmoor, a branch asylum was constructed at Rampton Secure Hospital
Rampton Secure Hospital
Rampton Secure Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital near the village of Woodbeck between Retford and Rampton in the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire, England...

 and opened in 1912. Rampton was closed as a branch asylum at the end of 1919 and reopened as an institution for mental defectives rather than lunatics. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 Broadmoor's block 1 was also used as a prisoner-of-war camp, called Crowthorne War Hospital, for mentally ill German soldiers.

After the escape and the murder of a local child in 1952 by John Straffen
John Straffen
John Thomas Straffen was a British serial killer who was the longest-serving prisoner in British legal history. Straffen killed two young girls in the summer of 1951. He was found to be unfit to plead and committed to Broadmoor Hospital; during a brief escape in 1952 he killed again. This time he...

 the hospital set up an alarm system, which is activated to alert people in the vicinity, including those in the surrounding towns of Sandhurst, Wokingham
Wokingham
Wokingham is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire in South East England about west of central London. It is about east-southeast of Reading and west of Bracknell. It spans an area of and, according to the 2001 census, has a population of 30,403...

, Bracknell
Bracknell
Bracknell is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Bracknell Forest in Berkshire, England. It lies to the south-east of Reading, southwest of Windsor and west of central London...

 and Bagshot, when any potentially dangerous patient escapes. It is based on World War II air-raid sirens, and a two-tone alarm sounds across the whole area in the event of an escape. It is tested every Monday morning at 10 am for two minutes, after which a single tone 'all-clear' is sounded for a further two minutes. All schools in the area must keep procedures designed to ensure that in the event of a Broadmoor escape no child is ever out of the direct supervision of a member of staff. Sirens are located at Sandhurst School, Wellington College and other sites.

As well as providing patient care Broadmoor is a centre for training and research.

Following the Peter Fallon QC inquiry into Ashworth Special Hospital, which found, amongst other things, serious concerns about security and abuses that came about from poor management, it was decided to review the security at all three special hospitals. Until this time each special hospital was responsible for maintaining its own security policies.

This review was made the personal responsibility of Sir Alan Langlands
Alan Langlands
Sir Robert Alan Langlands FRSE FRCP FRCGP FRCS FRCPSG FFPH FIA is notable for his service as chief executive of the National Health Service executive in England and, more recently, as principal and vice chancellor of the University of Dundee .-Early career:Robert Alan Langlands attended...

 who at the time was Chief Executive of the National Health Service (England)
National Health Service (England)
The National Health Service or NHS is the publicly funded healthcare system in England. It is both the largest and oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. It is able to function in the way that it does because it is primarily funded through the general taxation system, similar to how...

. The report that came out of the review initiated a new partnership to be formed whereby the Department of Health sets out a policy of safety and security directions that all three special hospitals must adhere to. These directions are then updated or modified as needed.

This has resulted in upgraded physical security at Broadmoor from approximately category 'C' to category 'B' prison standards. Higher levels of security than this are then placed around certain buildings. New standards have also been formulated to increase procedural security and safety for the staff and other patients; these include procedures and equipment for reducing the amount of contraband smuggled into the hospital.

Before the Langlands report, it had been an anathema in modern psychiatry to think of enclosing the mentally ill behind razor wire. As this type of security measure had been seen as unnecessary, it was thought that it would only serve to reinforce the stigma against psychiatric patients if it were to be employed.

Misconceiving it as a prison

Because of the outside appearance of the buildings, especially its high walls and other visible security features, and the inaccurate news reporting it has in the past received, it is occasionally presumed by some members of the general public that Broadmoor Hospital is a prison.
Many of its patients are indeed referred to it by the criminal justice system, and its original design brief incorporated an essence of addressing criminality in addition to mental illness; however, the layout inside and the daily routine are designed to assist the therapy practised there rather than to meet the criteria necessary for it to be run along the lines of a prison in its daily functions. Many staff were often members of the Prison Officers Association
Prison Officers Association
The POA: The Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers is a trade union in the United Kingdom "for prison, correctional and secure psychiatric workers." It currently has a membership of 33,500...

, as opposed to the health service unions like COHSE.

Jimmy Noak, Broadmoor's director of nursing
Nursing
Nursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....

, in response to claims that criminals were being given unfairly pleasant treatment in the facility, commented, "It's not fair, but what is the alternative? If these people committed crimes because they were suffering from an acute mental illness then they should be in hospital."

Governance

From its opening until 1948 Broadmoor was managed by a Council of Supervision, appointed by and reporting to the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Home Secretary). Thereafter, the Criminal Justice Act of 1948 transferred ownership of the Hospital to the Department of Health (and the new NHS
National Health Service (England)
The National Health Service or NHS is the publicly funded healthcare system in England. It is both the largest and oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. It is able to function in the way that it does because it is primarily funded through the general taxation system, similar to how...

) and oversight to the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency
Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency
The Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency was part of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Health, but was independent in that it reported to the Lord Chancellor . The Board had previously been under the responsibility of the Home Office, moving to the Ministry of Health in about 1930...

 established under the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. It also renamed the hospital Broadmoor Institution. The Hospital remained under direct control of the Department of Health - a situation which reportedly "combined notional central control with actual neglect" until the establishment of the Special Hospitals Service Authority
Special Hospitals Service Authority
The Special Hospitals Service Authority was a special health authority of the National Health Service in England from 1989 to 1996. It had responsibility for managing the three high security "special" psychiatric hospitals in England: Ashworth, Broadmoor and Rampton.The SHSA was established to...

 in 1989, with Charles Kaye as initial Chief Executive.

In 1996 the SHSA itself was abolished, being replaced by individual special health authorities
NHS Special Health Authority
A special health authority is a type of NHS trust which provide services on behalf of the National Health Service in England. Unlike other types of Trust, they operate nationally rather than serve a specific geographical area....

 in each of the High Secure Hospitals. The Broadmoor Hospital Authority was itself dissolved on 31 March 2001. Then on 1 April 2001 West London Mental Health (NHS) Trust
West London Mental Health (NHS) Trust
The West London Mental Healthcare NHS Trust was established 1 October 2000.The head quarters is situated in St. Bernard's Hospital Building...

 took over the responsibility for this hospital. This Trust reports to the NHS Executive
NHS Executive
The National Health Service Executive was an integral part of the British Department of Health. It advised Ministers on the development of NHS policy and was responsible for the effective management of the NHS...

 through the London Strategic Health Authority.

Current research

A new unit called the Paddock Centre was opened on 12 December 2005 to treat patients with a dangerous severe personality disorder (DSPD). This is a new and much debated diagnosis or label that has two criteria. The first criterion is that the individual be 'dangerous', i.e. they are considered to be or represent a 'Grave and Immediate Danger' to the general public. It has been suggested that the threshold for this criterion be set at a greater than 50% chance of that individual committing serious harm upon another, from which the victim is unlikely to recover.

The second DSPD criterion is that the individual suffers from a 'severe personality disorder', meaning that he or she has:
  1. A diagnosis of two or more personality disorders that meet the criteria as laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
    Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
    The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders...

     DSM IV –TR; or
  2. A significant score (i.e. 30 or higher) on the Hare Psychopathy Check list – Revised (PCL-R); or
  3. A slightly lower score (i.e. 25 to 29) on the Hare Psychopathy Check list and with one or more personality disorders but not including an Antisocial personality disorder
    Antisocial personality disorder
    Antisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...

     diagnosis.


Rather than create a new Mental Health Act, it may now only require the existing laws to be updated in order that people can be assessed for this condition before they have been committed to the forensic services by another route. The DSPD service in the Paddock Centre will be limited to men, as it is not yet scientifically agreed whether any women meet this criterion.

Individuals who do meet this criterion will be admitted to the new Paddock unit only as and when sufficient staff have been trained to be able to provide and maintain the right therapeutic programmes and environment. The Paddock Centre is designed to eventually house 72 patients, and is one of four units being set up in England and Wales. The architects were Oxford Architects LLP http://www.oxford-architects.com/index.html

As the West London Mental Health NHS Trust already carries out research, the Trust hopes that Broadmoor will become a centre of learning for this new type of therapy. The ultimate aim of this work is to reduce the cost to society compared to that which would accrue if no treatment was provided.

Notable patients of Broadmoor Hospital - past and present

  • James Kelly, convicted of killing his wife, suspected of being Jack the Ripper
    Jack the Ripper
    "Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

    , his memoirs place his whereabouts around other unsolved murders in the UK and the United States.
  • Edward Oxford
    Edward Oxford
    Edward Oxford was tried for high treason for attempting to assassinate Queen Victoria in 1840.The Queen was out riding on Constitution Hill with her husband, Prince Albert, on 10 June, when Oxford shot twice at the couple, missing both times. He was seized by onlookers, arrested and tried at the...

  • David Copeland
    David Copeland
    David John Copeland is a former member of the British National Party and the National Socialist Movement, who became known as the "London Nail Bomber" after a 13-day bombing campaign in April 1999 aimed at London's black, Bangladeshi and gay communities.Over three successive weekends between 17...

  • Richard Dadd
    Richard Dadd
    Richard Dadd was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail...

  • Gregory Davis
    Gregory Davis
    Gregory Davis is an English spree killer and former art student who was convicted of the double manslaughter of Dorothy Rogers and her son Michael Rogers in 2003...

  • Ibrahim Eidarous, alleged member of al-Jihad
  • Kenneth Erskine
    Kenneth Erskine
    Kenneth Erskine is an English serial killer who became known as the Stockwell Strangler.-Early life:Erskine was born in July 1963 to an English mother and Antiguan father...

  • June and Jennifer Gibbons
    June and Jennifer Gibbons
    June and Jennifer Gibbons , were identical twins who grew up in Wales. They became known as 'The Silent Twins' owing to their choice to communicate only with their immediate family. They began writing works of fiction but turned to crime in a bid for recognition...

  • Ronald Kray
  • Thomas John Ley
    Thomas John Ley
    Thomas John Ley was an Australian politician who was convicted of murder in England. It is highly likely that he was also involved in the deaths of a number of people in Australia.-Early life:...

  • Roderick McLean
  • Daniel Gonzalez
    Daniel Gonzalez
    Daniel Gonzalez , also known as the Freddy Krueger Killer and the Mummy's Boy Killer, was a spree killer who killed four people and injured two others during three days across London and Sussex in September 2004...

  • Robert Maudsley
    Robert Maudsley
    Robert John Maudsley is a British serial killer responsible for the murders of four people. He committed three of these murders in prison after receiving a life sentence for a single murder...

  • William Rutherford Benn, father of Margaret Rutherford
    Margaret Rutherford
    Dame Margaret Taylor Rutherford DBE was an English character actress, who first came to prominence following World War II in the film adaptations of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest...

  • William Chester Minor
    William Chester Minor
    William Chester Minor, also known as W. C. Minor was an American army surgeon who, later, was one of the largest contributors of quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary...

    , known as The Surgeon of Crowthorne
    The Surgeon of Crowthorne
    The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words is a book by Simon Winchester that was first published in England in 1998...

  • Daniel M'Naghten
    Daniel M'Naghten
    Daniel M'Naghten was a Scottish woodturner who assassinated English civil servant Edward Drummond while suffering from paranoid delusions...

  • Robert Napper
    Robert Napper
    Robert Clive Napper is a convicted British serial killer and rapist who was remanded in Broadmoor Hospital indefinitely on 18 December 2008 for the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell on 15 July 1992...

  • Nicky Reilly
  • John Straffen
    John Straffen
    John Thomas Straffen was a British serial killer who was the longest-serving prisoner in British legal history. Straffen killed two young girls in the summer of 1951. He was found to be unfit to plead and committed to Broadmoor Hospital; during a brief escape in 1952 he killed again. This time he...

  • Peter Sutcliffe
    Peter Sutcliffe
    Peter William Sutcliffe is a British serial killer who was dubbed "The Yorkshire Ripper". In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others. He is currently serving 20 sentences of life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...

    , known as Yorkshire Ripper
  • Charles Bronson
    Charles Bronson (prisoner)
    Charles Bronson is a Welsh criminal often referred to in the British press as the "most violent prisoner in Britain"....

  • Roy Shaw
    Roy Shaw
    Royston Henry Shaw , also known as Roy "Pretty Boy" Shaw, Roy "Mean Machine" Shaw and Roy West, is an English millionaire, real estate investor, author and businessman from the East End of London who was formerly a notorious criminal and Category A prisoner...

  • Ronald True
    Ronald True
    Ronald True, registered at birth as Angus Ronald True, was an English murderer. He was found guilty of the murder of a prostitute in 1922 but reprieved by the Home Secretary on the grounds of insanity and confined for life in Broadmoor Hospital...

  • Graham Young, released by hospital as "fully recovered", and who later poisoned dozens of people, two fatally. Jailed aged 14 (youngest prisoner detained there since 1885).
  • Antony Baekeland, grandson of Leo Baekeland, after his trial for stabbing his mother
    Barbara Daly Baekeland
    Barbara Daly Baekeland was a wealthy socialite who was murdered by her son, Antony Baekeland. She was the wife of Brooks Baekeland, who was the grandson of Leo Baekeland, inventor of Bakelite plastic....

     to death.
  • Ian Ball, who attempted to kidnap Princess Anne in 1974

  • See also

    • Ashworth high-security psychiatric hospital
      Ashworth Hospital
      Ashworth Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital at Maghull in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England.Ashworth is one of only three high-security specialist psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales, along with Rampton and Broadmoor, that exist to work with people who...

    • Forensic psychiatry
      Forensic psychiatry
      Forensic psychiatry is a sub-speciality of psychiatry and an auxiliar science of criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry...

    • Rampton high-security psychiatric hospital
      Rampton Secure Hospital
      Rampton Secure Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital near the village of Woodbeck between Retford and Rampton in the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire, England...

    • West London Mental Health NHS Trust, who holds the commission from the Secretary of State for the Home Department to run this hospital.

    Further reading

    Dewey Class 365/.942294 19. Sum: authors describe the treatment of some Broadmoor patients and together with their psychiatric and criminal histories.

    External links

    The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
     
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