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Patients are regularly placed inappropriately in the high security State Hospital Carstairs due to a lack of community resources, the hospital’s own medical director has confirmed.

Dr Jenni Connaughton was speaking out after the parents of one patient Darren Crichton petitioned the Scottish parliament, and gave details of how he had been waiting unsuccessfully for discharge for two years due to a lack of resources in his home area of Tayside. Connaughton said that while the numbers varied, at this time 33 patients were in a similar position to Crichton.

Last December the Scottish Health Advisory Service (SHAS) reported that on average 40 patients at any time were placed in Carstairs due to a lack of local resources. SHAS claims that these patients no longer need the top secure environment of Carstairs, and calls for a network of medium secure centres to be set up across Scotland.

Plans to build such centres in Glasgow and Edinburgh have met with fierce opposition from local communities. Trade unions warned that staff would resign from Stobbhill Hospital in Glasgow if that unit was chosen as the site for such a development.