Three Bridges medium secure unit provides secure services to men with complex and enduring needs, who pose a risk to themselves or others, and who require a medium secure setting.
The unit houses the entire men’s medium secure service and currently comprises a total of 115 beds across 7 wards based in 2 buildings: Thames Lodge and Medway Lodge.
The unit provides psychological, occupational and rehabilitative services to support service users on their journeys to recovery through a combination of therapy and treatment to improve mental health and personal function and reduce risk with the ultimate aim of a successful transition back into the community.
Service users in Three Bridges engage in a range of therapies and activities, appropriate to their needs. These may include:
- Arts therapies
- Education
- Family therapy
- Occupational therapy
- Physical activities
- Physical healthcare
- Psychology
- Psychotherapy
- Vocational activities and training.
Service users are encouraged to take an active role in their care and to choose many of their activities and therapies through open discussion with their clinical teams.
The team focuses on four main areas of psychological and rehabilitative treatments:
- Therapeutic engagement interventions: focused on enhancing the service user’s capacity to form relationships with others
- Improving mental health interventions: promoting mental health recovery through a shared understanding with the individual of their mental health needs and the appropriate strategies for their management.
- Risk reduction: through collaborative risk assessment and working with service users to assess and define their risk behaviour and develop ways of reducing risk to enable them to move to less secure community settings in the future
- Meaningful occupation: through a wide range of opportunities in vocational and therapy areas, service users are supported and encouraged to explore a variety of activities in different environments.
Thames Lodge is male medium secure unit in the Three Bridges medium secure unit at St Bernard’s Hospital in Ealing.
It provides a comprehensive multi-disciplinary assessment, treatment and rehabilitation service for male mentally disordered offenders, as well as those with challenging behaviour and specialist rehabilitation needs, for North West London.
It has 80 beds, over 5 wards and was purpose built to improve service users’ physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Facilities:
- A primary health care treatment room
- A dental suite
- Gym and outdoor facilities to allow physical activity and therapies with more independence
- Kitchens in which fresh food is cooked, offering healthy meals
- Bedrooms and washroom facilities
- A garden and horticultural centre
- The Riverside Centre, including a café, work, education and therapeutic opportunities.
Wards:
- Brent
- Falcon
- Lea
- Berry
- Windrush.
Service users in Medway Lodge are encouraged to develop vocational skills, and alongside therapy, to provide the main workforce in the central therapies vocational areas of the Three Bridges site, such as the café, library, shop, hairdressers and gym.
Where appropriate to their risk level, vocational skills and development opportunities for service users include:
- Catering
- Motor and mechanics
- Administration and finance
- Horticulture
- Retail
- Design, print and technology
- Carpentry
- Sports and fitness
- Hairdressing and beauty.
Medway Lodge encourages safe physical, community activity to prepare service users for future discharge to the community, where appropriate. Facilities such as the communal gardens and sports hall are vital for rehabilitation and developing vital social skills to make this possible.
Wards:
- Bourne
- Waterdown.
Visits must be approved in advance. If a visit hasn’t been booked in advance, visitors won’t be allowed into the unit.
Due to current Covid-19 restrictions, not face-to-face visits are permitted, except where there are exceptional circumstances to justify a visit. Visitors are encouraged to use the facilities for virtual visits until the current restrictions come to an end.
Service user areas are specially designed to promote positive relationships with other service users and staff. Safety is built into the layout and enhanced through the use of the latest security technology.
As a result, service users are encouraged to spend more time in shared areas and enclosed gardens to build their capacity for healthy social interactions and relationships.
As a medium secure facility, Three Bridges medium secure unit takes service users from HM Prison Service, the courts, and special hospitals.
Suitable referrals can be sent to the referrals and bed manager via secure email.
Email: wlm-tr.wlfsreferrals@nhs.net
The catchment area for the unit encompasses 8 boroughs:
- Ealing
- Brent
- Hammersmith and Fulham
- Harrow
- Hillingdon
- Hounslow
- Kensington and Chelsea
- Westminster.