A CONTROVERSIAL Hampshire psychiatric unit will close its doors for the last time today and all its patients transferred to a new £25m purpose-built complex.

The newly opened Antelope House replaces the Department of Psychiatry at Southampton’s Royal South Hants Hospital.

Built alongside the RSH, the new 60-bed complex includes a psychiatric intensive care unit, high dependency beds and single sex wards.

All of the rooms have en suite facilities and there is also a gym, activity areas, internal courtyard gardens and quiet room.

A home treatment service will also be based at Antelope House to support people in the community.

Trevor Abbotts, Southampton’s area manager for mental health services, said the new purpose building was far more conducive to delivering mental health services than the DoP which was originally built as a maternity unit.

“We have always had an uphill struggle with the DoP.

“It is a typical 1970s designed hospital with limited space, no outside areas and all upper floors which have not been conducive to delivering mental health care.

“The environment plays a really important part for service users who will be able to benefit from the open spaces, lounge, quiet room, and garden at Antelope House.”

Today’s opening is the culmination of years of planning by Hampshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, responsible for the county’s mental health services.

The latest investment comes after a leaked memo in 2005 revealed details of drug and alcohol abuse on the DoP’s wards, staff abuse and dangerous levels of understaffing.

That year a patient pressure group described the unit as “an accident waiting to happen” and an undercover investigation the following year revealed major security problems with 26 patients absconding from the centre in four years.