PLANS for a new £3million mental health ward to be built at Basildon Hospital have been handed to planning chiefs by the South Essex Partnership NHS Trust.

The Echo revealed earlier this year the current facilities for patients with serious mental problems had failed to meet Government standard.

Since a review revealed the failing, health bosses have since drawn up plans to replace them with a brand new two-storey psychiatric intensive care unit in the mental health unit of the hospital in Nethermayne.

Proposals have been handed to Basildon Council including a new 15-bed purpose-built centre designed for adults between 16 and 65 years of age who require "intensive clinical intervention".

Published Thursday, December 8, 2005