St Wulstan's Psychiatric Hospital

St Wulstan's Psychiatric Hospital (1960 to 1986)

St Wulstan's last period as a hospital was as a 350 bedded regional psychiatric rehabilitation hospital. Patients were sent there from all over the West Midlands Health Authority area. Most would have been inpatients in their local hospitals for long periods, often becoming institutionalised in the process, and were probably suffering from psychosis (illnesses causing disruption of thought processes and sensory perception, sometimes severely effecting daily life).

St Wulstans was described as unique as it aimed to rehabilitate patients back into the community at a time when most patients with psychosis resided in long stay wards in large asylums that dated from the Victorian age. St Wulstans focused on training patients to live independently in the community, where most hospitals looked to provide sanctuary and safety away from the modern world. Years later it would become the norm for nearly all mentally ill people to live in the community.

The hospital provided a structure which allowed patients to progress through units or wards to living in staffed accommodation with a reducing level of staffing. They would then move out of the hospital into individual homes or bed and breakfast establishments.

The hospital worked with people's skills and abilities to undertake employment. Patients would be trained to have a structured day and be able to work with others. They would be taught daily living skills, for example, budgeting skills. Those who had progressed to living outside of the hospital would return daily to work in the hospital and would be paid for their work.

Staff worked in ways that were different to other psychiatric hospitals of the time. Patients and staff worked alongside each other doing clerical, laundry, kitchen, garden and workshop work. In the workshops, surgical implements and dressing packs would be assembled and packed before being sent off to be sterilised. These packs would then be used in the theatres and on the wards of general hospitals. Other workshops packed items such as exhaust clips and other car parts. There was also an area that made concrete slabs.

The hospital was much more integrated with the local community than might be the case nowadays. The patients and staff shopped in the local shop in Upper Welland. The patients often purchased quantities of snuff sold in little blue boxes. Locals played and watched the cricket matches that were held in the hospital grounds, there was a social club that locals would go to and the local children would dance at the disco held in the hospital on a Friday night.

The hospital was under threat of closure for a number of years before 1986. Moves were made for closure in 1977 and there was a strike by staff at the hospital in the same year. In 1981, a fact-finding team reported on the running of the hospital. In May 1982, the regional health authority once again considered closure.
The hospital eventually closed for the last time at the end of 1986, despite passionate opposition to the closure by many of those involved with the hospital.

The patients, many of whom had lived at the hospital for many years, were suddenly expected to return to their home areas. Some were rehomed in staffed hostels such as Sheffield House in Barnards Green. Others went in to bed and breakfast accommodation and struggled with a loss of structure in their lives.

Bronwen Williams, Volunteer Archivist
St Wulstans Local Nature Reserve History Archive
June 2007

A personal view

Trevor & Pat Haselton contacted us from Port Mcneill, British Columbia, Canada and gave us this insight into life at St Wulstans in the 1980's. We're very grateful for this and look forward to hearing from other people who lived or worked at St Wulstan's.

Pat Haselton wrote - "We moved to St.Wulstan's in November 1981, Trevor was a charge nurse at the hospital and we stayed until November 1985, just before the closure. We Lived in the first bungalow as you drove into the crescent. We have some wonderful memories of our time there; it was such a lovely setting and a great community. I was really sad to leave and have never experienced anything like those years since, my family all know that my dream is to win the lottery and buy a little house or cottage there! The crescent was especially beautiful in the spring when all the blossom trees were out in full bloom. We had a constant stream of visitors to St.Wulstan's, all who still remember it as something unique. One of our relatives sold up everything in London and moved to Worcester after visiting us!".

"Our eldest daughter Lindsay went to playschool on the Wells road and started at the infant school when she was five, it was 100 years old then! Suzanne was born in Worcester and so we have many photographs of them growing up there. We used to walk through the 'spinney', (the little lane to the left as you go out of the gates)on our way to the post office, the girls were sure there were fairies in there! we saw lots of squirrels, we saw foxes and one night a huge owl landed on our front garden, it was very magical. In the summer we would sit on the front lawn and watch the cricket, Trevor played once or twice. Our neighbours in the bungalows were Gwen & Bob Nash, The Packmans, Caroline & Sam Roach, their little girl Sarah was Lindsays first friend, Lindsay learned to ride a bike in the cresent. Steve & Elizabeth Aitken lived in the first 'hut' on the left as you come through the gates, he was a lovely photographer and artist and I'm sure has many items of interest for you ( if they are stil in the area.)
Anyway, I will look through our photos and send some to you as soon as possible. Good Luck!. We emigrated in 1991."