Patients stuck in unsafe hospital for two more months

NHS England has accepted it will take until the end of June to move “priority” patients out of a hospital where there are “serious safety concerns”.

In a letter to integrated care board, NHS England said they should ensure the “majority” of patients in specified “priority cohorts” are moved out of St Andrew’s hospital in Northampton by the end of June.

This comes six weeks after NHSE first wrote to commissioners to order residents in the hospital be moved.

Nick Broughton, who recently took over as NHSE’s national director for mental health, learning disability and neurodevelopmental conditions, said: “The decision to move patients has been clinically led and based upon serious safety concerns.”

St Andrew’s, the flagship hospital of one of the NHS’s biggest independent providers, was prevented from accepting new patients last summer after revelations of poor care, and an “inadequate” Care Quality Commission rating. It is subject to three ongoing police investigations, with 15 staff members arrested following abuse and neglect allegations.

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Source: HSJ, 22 April 2026