The Special Hospitals Service Authority was a special health authority in England from 1989 to 1996 that was responsible for managing the three high security psychiatric hospitals: Ashworth, Broadmoor and Rampton. It aimed to distance the hospitals from direct Department of Health control and its objectives included ensuring public safety, providing appropriate treatment, developing a good quality of life, training staff, developing relationships with local NHS services, and promoting research. The authority operated flexibly at the hospital level and was abolished in 1996 when its functions passed to the High Security Psychiatric Services Commissioning Board and each hospital became independently managed.

1. Special Hospitals Service Authority
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce
links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (November 2009)
The Special Hospitals Service Authority was a special health authority of the National
Health Service in England from 1989 to 1996. It had responsibility for managing the three
high security "special" psychiatric hospitals in England: Ashworth, Broadmoor and Rampton.
The SHSA was established to distance the hospitals from the direct control of the Department
of Health. Its Operational Brief set out six principle objectives[1]:
1. ensure the continuing safety of the public;
2. ensure the provision of appropriate treatment for patients;
3. ensure a good quality of life for both patients and staff;
4. develop the hospitals as centres of excellence for the training of staff in all disciplines
in forensic and other branches of psychiatry, psychiatric care and treatment;
5. develop closer working relationships with local and regional NHS psychiatric
services;
6. promote research into fields related to forensic psychiatry.
This document also stated that the Authority should be "constituted as a small organisation,
operating flexibly and maximising delegation of operational responsibility to hospital level,
rather than acting as a centralised interventionist body". To this end, a Unit General Manager
was appointed to oversee the work of each of the three Hospitals.
The Authority was abolished in 1996 when its commissioning functions passed to the High
Security Psychiatric Services Commissioning Board, while each of the Hospitals became
independently managed as a Special Health Authority in its own right.