A glimpse inside UK's horror hospital

UK Undercover: Inside Broadmoor (C5)

Question: when is a hospital not a hospital? Answer: when it's Broadmoor where, according to this documentary, people are treated more like prisoners than patients.

This report was a follow-up to a film made 20 years ago which exposed scandals inside Britain's most notorious hospital. The update found - by talking to consultants, psychiatrists and former inmates - that many reforms proposed in the late 1980s have been "sabotaged" in recent years.

The documentary maintained that, two decades on, almost identical allegations of neglect and abuse were being levelled at the hospital for the criminally insane.

Broadmoor was opened in 1863 as a progressive experiment to house the insane, after they were spared the death penalty as they weren't considered responsible for their actions. Victorian doctors had no tranquilisers or anti-psychotic drugs, believing that fresh air, music, dancing and farm work would help patients.

Broadmoor earned its reputation by housing some of the most difficult, disturbed and dangerous men and women in the country, people like Ronnie Kray and the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.

After reports condemning conditions in the 1980s, managers were appointed to change the image and make it part of the NHS. They got Princess Diana to open a new therapeutic centre.

Now those same managers feel many reforms have been overturned in the name of security with more and more techniques reminiscent of prison rather than hospital are being used.

The 4ft wall has been raised, a second wall built, fences and razor wire added. Some £55m has been spent on pumping up security without, a consultant psychiatrist said, any evidence the extra security was necessary.

Patients have to wait months to be assessed, let alone treated, by a psychologist. Shackles are being used again. Parole outings have been cut Even sweets are considered dangerous. A consultant psychiatrist was told he couldn't take them into the hospital as they might be laced with illicit drugs.

The result is depression and despair inside Broadmoor, with patients taking out their misery on their own bodies. Five women have died "in worrying circumstances" since 2000.

The outlook doesn't look less grim. The Government plans six mini-Broadmoors to house those diagnosed as a potential menace to society - or "anti-social personality disorder", as they call it