EXTRA funding announced by the Government will lead to segregation of the sexes at a psychiatric hospital.
Men and women patients at 103-year-old St Luke's Hospital, Middlesbrough, sleep in separate dormitories, but share the same day and dining room facilities.
All that is to end with a £1.2m scheme to modernise the hospital with a new acute admissions unit, and hotel-style sleeping accommodation in separate male and female areas, new day and dining rooms, and improved occupational therapy and therapeutic facilities - the main reason for the changes.
It is part of a £30m package spread over two years to improve inpatient mental health services. Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust, which runs St Luke's, was one of only two trusts in the region to benefit from the additional funds.
Chief executive Moira Britton said: "It will not just provide a better environment, but also give our staff the opportunity to develop their therapeutic skills for the benefit of the patients, in a way in which the current layout of the old hospital does not allow."
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