Mental health hospital reaches 200th anniversary

As a hospital caring for people with mental illnesses celebrates its 200th anniversary, a medical boss has said its origins lay with "treating people with dignity and respect".

Oxford's Warneford Hospital has been holding a year-long programme of events to mark the milestone.

Originally called the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum it opened in 10 July 1826 and is the longest-serving psychiatric inpatient unit still in use in England.

Dr Karl Marlowe, chief medical officer at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and sponsor of the Warneford 200 project, said it opened its doors "when, as a society, we began moving against the incarceration of people with mental illness and moving towards moral therapy".

Oxford Health Charity, part of the trust, is delivering a series of events that aim to share the experiences of patients, staff, and the wider community over two centuries of hospital care.

The project, which received a grant of £156,258 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, also aims to inform people about the site and get people talking about mental health.

The Warneford Hospital was pioneering for its time, built with just 40 beds, in contrast to inner city asylums which would have up to 2,000.

Dr Marlowe described its status as the oldest continuously used NHS facility as "quite remarkable".

"This year we are marking the patients, carers, families, and staff across disciplines who have become part of the hospital's 200-year history," he said.

"The natural landscape offered by the hospital was very much part of the moral therapy offered to patients and is something that is just as important today as it was 200 years ago."

He said its history reflected "wider shifts in medicine, society, and attitudes toward mental health".

"Marking its bicentenary has meant thinking carefully about what should be preserved, what should be questioned, and how we honour the people who lived, worked, and were cared for there," he added.

Plans for a £750m new mental health hospital and University of Oxford medical research campus to replace the existing facility were recently approved by Oxford City Council.

The existing Grade II-listed hospital building, which the university said was "no longer deemed fit for modern services", will be restored and expanded to become a new graduate college for medical education.

Details of the events commemorating the hospital's anniversary can be found here.