Situated in the Brislington area of south Bristol, Callington Road Hospital occupies a site that was once a stretch of council allotments, adjacent to the former Brislington Railway Station. The hospital has been providing psychiatric inpatient and community mental health services to Bristol and the surrounding region since it opened in 2006, and is operated by the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
Origins and Construction
By the early 2000s, the ageing Barrow Hospital – which had been built in 1939 – was in need of a modern replacement. A suitable site was identified on Callington Road, though the proposal was not without controversy. A local community group raised concerns about the hospital’s proximity to a nearby school, and the mental health charity MIND objected on grounds of noise in the area. Despite this opposition, Bristol City Council approved the plans and sold the former allotments in 2003, with construction beginning shortly afterwards. One condition attached to the planning approval required funding to be set aside for the development of a nature reserve on neighbouring land. That reserve was subsequently opened in 2009. The allotment land that the hospital now occupies had previously supported wildlife including badgers, slow worms, and various bird species, and the ecological character of the site was a formal consideration in the approval process. The finished hospital grounds were landscaped with paths, water features, gardens, and interpretation boards throughout.
Changes Over Time
Since opening, the hospital has seen a number of service changes. The Acer Unit, which provided drug and alcohol rehabilitation, was originally based at Callington Road but relocated to Blackberry Hill Hospital in 2011 after swapping buildings with Elizabeth Casson House, the female psychiatric intensive care unit. For several years, Callington Road also contained Bristol’s only Place of Safety provision, which at that time was a single-bed facility. That function transferred to the four-bed Mason Unit at Southmead Hospital when it opened in 2014. Both the Lime and Silver Birch acute wards were originally built with attached High Dependency Units, though these were later decommissioned following wider changes across the trust. The hospital also ran a series of arts projects for adult inpatients, led by a poet, a musician, and a visual artist. The work, funded jointly by the mental health trust and the city council, produced a booklet of poems, a recorded CD, and a set of felt collages.
Services Available Today
The hospital currently offers a broad range of inpatient and community services. Inpatient provision includes the Lime Unit and Silver Birch Unit for adult acute care, the Hazel Unit as a male psychiatric intensive care unit, and Elizabeth Casson House fulfilling the same function for women. The Alder Unit covers rehabilitation and reablement, while the Aspen Ward and Laurel Ward cater to older adults with functional and organic illnesses respectively, though Laurel Ward has been temporarily closed owing to unspecified safety-related concerns. The Linden Unit provides electroconvulsive therapy, and Larch Step Down offers further rehabilitation support. Art psychotherapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and nutrition and dietetics are all available on site. Community services include the Crisis Team, the Complex Interventions Team for older adults, the Bristol Active Life Project, and a dementia service.