A hospital ward which has been closed to patients for more than a year is finally due to re-open in the early stages of 2023.

However, it has also been revealed that the closure of Hellesdon Hospital's Rollesby ward has cost the region's mental health trust millions in sending patients elsewhere.

The ward has been closed since May 2021, after "significant damage" was caused to it.

The closure sparked a major renovation costing in the region of £700,000 and a change in strategy, which will see the psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) become a female-only facility when it re-opens.

However, the six-figure cost of refurbishments is just the tip of the iceberg, after it was revealed that more than £2m has been spent on providing PICU placements elsewhere while the ward has been closed.

Daryl Chapman, the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust's (NSFT) director of finance, revealed the figure at the trust's latest board meeting.

He said that the re-opening of the ward is hoped to reduce the amount the trust spends on out-of-area PICU placements - a figure which sits at £2.1m across Norfolk and Suffolk so far this year. 

The figure contributes to an overspend of £3.5m in treatment outside Norfolk and Suffolk.

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Meanwhile, Thandie Matambanadzo, NSFT's chief operating officer, revealed the Rollesby ward was expected to re-open at the end of January 2023.

She said: "Currently we have 33 out-of-area placements, 11 of which are inappropriate.

"However, we have just approved the re-opening of Rollesby ward at the end of January, as the workforce situation has improved.

"If we recruit earlier we will look at opening the ward earlier too, which will help us reduce our out-of-area PICU use."

Since its closure, a number of factors delayed the ward being re-opened.

Much of the delay was centred around the decision to use it as a single-ward facility - a decision which needed to be scrutinised by local authorities before being finalised.

The uncertainty around the use then hampered the trust's ability to recruit relevant staff to run the ward - with recruitment now in its final stages.