Publish date: 14 March 2025
This is the second of our bi-monthly email updates about the development of The Kingfisher – the new specialist mental health inpatient service for people with a learning disability and autistic people, being built at Blackberry Hill in Bristol. This month we’ve got an update on the development, details of the outreach team, the latest about the arts project, and recruitment news.
The service has been commissioned by Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB (BSW) on behalf of the North of the South West Region and will be operated by Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP). Stay up-to-date with the development here.
Update on building development
In mid-December, the Kingfisher underwent the first concrete pour, laying down the floor. Our cameras were on hand to record it and you can watch a satisfying timelapse video of the pour, which took a full day, here. The final concrete pour has now been completed to finish off the ground floor slab.
Now the floor is complete, it will be time to start assembling the steel frame, which is expected to take up to four weeks to complete – weather permitting. This will be the first time that the structure of the building will become visible, and staff, service users and visitors will then begin to get a sense of the size and shape of the new facility.
A mobile crane will be used to lift the steel frame into place, piece by piece, before being connected together by bolts fitted by operatives using cherry pickers. A larger crane will come onto the site in March to take over from the smaller mobile crane as the work progresses.
The timelapse camera will show further progress over the coming months, as the external build takes shape and the building is made water tight. You can now follow the progress of the facilities, by logging on to our webcam.
Hospital Rooms Arts Project
The Hospital Rooms Project for The Kingfisher is currently going through its research and development phase to learn more about service users and groups around the Trust. Art sessions have taken place at Cary Ward and Bristol Autism Spectrum Service (Bass), a great meeting was held with the Forensic Community Learning Disability Forum, as well as a staff focus group session. Service users have contributed their ideas and creative vision for the project through collage workshops exploring imagery. We have received feedback about the kinds of artworks they would hope to see in the new space, and the different feelings imagery evokes for them (e.g. calmness). Below are some of the artworks that were created as part of the sessions.
Ben Stunell, someone with lived experience who attended one of the sessions and has been helping shape The Kingfisher, said: “It was really good to see so many people attending the Bass Hospital Rooms art session where we thought about what an ideal calm space could look like, using lots of images to create a collage. This helped us to think about what helps us as autistic people to feel calm and safe. I'm really looking forward to the next one.”
The Hospital Rooms team will use the learnings from these and other visits with community organisations to map out the main engagement programme of the project. If you were unable to attend the focus group session but would like to share ideas towards the project, you can share your thoughts through this survey.
The Kingfisher outreach team
The Kingfisher outreach service is part of a South West Region delivery model to improve mental health care for people with a learning disability and autism. It will provide advice and guidance to support those with increased sensory needs.
The service is intended to complement local community mental health and learning disability services, providing additional specialist time limited intensive support to continue care at home. The team will work in the local community and provide treatment in the home or place of residence.
The new outreach team will be a multi-disciplinary team providing joint clinical and social care and support providing an integrated care pathway approach alongside other community services and learning disability intensive community teams through either the Dynamic support Registers (DSR) or Local Area Emergency Protocol (LAEP) process.
The outreach service will also support people at home following an admission to the Kingfisher inpatient service working with the patient, family and other community services to set goals and care requirements to enable ongoing treatment and care at home or place of residence.
Developing You
We spoke with Oriana Morrison-Clarke (left), Clinical Programme Project Lead, to learn more about the diverse roles and opportunities at The Kingfisher and how we can help advance your career. Oriana said: “We’re really excited to welcome you to be part of our dynamic teams providing specialist care to people with a learning disability, autism and ADHD and their families/carers, this includes our innovative, state of the art learning disability and autism (LDA) inpatient and outreach service based in Bristol and serving the North of the South West region. At AWP we will provide you with the opportunities to develop your knowledge, skills and experience to deliver high quality, compassionate care for our service users. Join us and take the next step towards a fulfilling career.”
Click here and scroll down to the ‘Developing you’ section to read the full Q&A. Click here to discover our latest opportunities.