Wolfson House

Wolfson House provides low secure mental health services for North East London. The service covers: The City of London and the London Boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Havering and Barking and Dagenham. Service users are sometimes admitted to forensic services from acute mental health services, where specialist support is indicated, courts, prisons and by instruction from the Ministry of Justice.

Address

311-315 Green Lanes
London
N4 2ES
United Kingdom

Opening hours

This is a 24 hour care facility open 365 days of the year

Telephone number

020 3222 7100/1/2

Low Secure Treatment and Rehabilitation

Wolfson House is a facility that provides a low secure setting for men and is focused on rehabilitation and preparing service users to be discharged into the community. The aim is to give service users the skills to run their own lives and maintain a good quality of life. This includes equipping them to cook, shop, eat healthily, manage their money, budget, attend to their personal care, look after their room/flat and manage their relationships and their overall health. Care and treatment are offered in relation to physical health as well as mental health.

Step-down Forensic Services

The John Howard Centre, located in Homerton, is the medium secure rehabilitation unit stage of the service. Wolfson House sometimes acts as a “step-down” facility.

Forensic services provide treatment and rehabilitation for people with a severe mental illness, who are presenting with a potential risk to others, who have been arrested, who are on remand or who have been to court and convicted of an offence. All service users are detained in secure forensic services under mental health legislation, specifically the Mental Health Act 1983. Some service users are recalled to hospital from the community. Sometimes, service users will have been transferred from Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) in general adult mental health services.

Our address is 311-315 Green Lanes, London N4 2ES.

The length of time spent in forensic units depends on an individual’s recovery and progress towards rehabilitation. Professionals who work in forensic mental health services take decisions about length of stay in collaboration with the professionals who will be responsible for an individual's support and care following discharge. If someone has been convicted of a violent offence, or has been considered to present with a potential risk to others, the Ministry of Justice and Parole Board may be involved in decisions about discharge. The service works closely with these agencies as well as the Probation Service.

“Forensic” means “pertaining to the law”. These services are an alternative to prison for people who have a mental health illness and offer specialist treatment and care. They are “secure” units, which means that people who are referred there are not free to come and go unless leave has been agreed in advance.

The philosophy and aim of the forensic rehabilitation service are encompassed by the recovery model. This is a service user-centred model that focuses on patient empowerment, collaboration and aims to enable each individual’s journey of recovery.

Service users are supported by a multidisciplinary team of professionals with specialist training. The aim is to maximise collaboration between service users and professionals.

When someone is admitted onto one of our wards, it is important that families and friends continue to support them. For safety reasons, visits are screened in advance.

It is a good idea to telephone the ward first to find out the visiting times and when is a good time to visit the person.

Our visiting times are usually from 2pm-8pm during the week and 10am at weekends from. But if you are coming a long way or will not be able to visit during those times, contact the ward manager. They will try to accommodate your needs in exceptional circumstances.

Service users will appreciate small gifts, treats, items that they can use when in hospital and home-cooked meals. But mostly they will appreciate a conversation with you and news from the outside world and about loved ones.

Because we have to ensure our wards are safe and healthy, there are a number of items that you cannot bring onto our wards and a number of items that are restricted so may need to be kept in a safe place by the team. Additionally, all our forensic service sites have specific security arrangements and protocols which all staff, patients and visitors have to work with. This includes depositing mobile phones, cameras etc. into lockers provided in the main entrance.

Children can visit by arrangement only. Please speak to the ward Social Worker in the first instance. There is a Family Visiting Room near the main entrance to support family visits.

When someone is admitted onto one of our wards, it is important that families and friends continue to support them. For safety reasons, visits are screened in advance.

It is a good idea to telephone the ward first to find out the visiting times and when is a good time to visit the person.

Children can visit by arrangement only. Please speak to the ward Social Worker in the first instance. There is a Family Visiting Room near the main entrance to support family visits.

There is more information here >>

The role of families and friends in supporting our service users is vital. We have put together a pack for carers to help understand our service.

We work hard to explain what is happening with the care of individuals in the unit. We may not always get things right in our communication with you. So if you want to speak to someone about any aspect of the care and treatment your friend or relative is receiving, their social worker is a good point of contact, or email us on elft.forensiccarercontact@nhs.net We will get back to you to talk things through.

Carers sometimes come to Care Programme Approach (CPA) meetings to contribute their views and hear about how things have been progressing. Carers can also arrange to speak to the consultant psychiatrist. Again, please use the contact details above if you do not know who to get in touch with.

Sometimes our service users do not want their information shared with family members, which can be hard for families who want to help. Whilst service users have that right to confidentiality, we can still discuss some things with you and hear what you have to say.

If you have a friend of family member receiving our services, please do consider coming to one of our open days or consider joining our Friends and Families Forum. Let us know you are interested by sending an email to this address elft.forensiccarercontact@nhs.net.

Our service users and former service users are uniquely well placed to improve what we do. We are delighted that our service users contribute to management of the unit through the User Involvement Group. Service Users are key members of a number of our Quality Improvement Projects to improve how we do things, and run courses at our popular Recovery Colleges.

We have therapeutic groups that are led by or facilitated by service users and we have a range of Peer Support Workers who are paid members of staff whose own lived experience helps them to help others receiving care. This also helps in our drive to reduce inequalities, for example with a specific service-user led group for Black service users.

The service uses the Patient and Carer Race Quality Network (PCREF) framework which supports services to become Anti-Racist organisations.