NEWS RELEASE: ISSUED ON BEHALF OF PRIORY GROUP

Priory Group completes the acquisition of Affinity Healthcare

19/3/10

Priory Group has confirmed its acquisition of Affinity Healthcare Group following clearance to do so from the Office of Fair Trading.

Priory CEO Philip Scott said: ‘We are pleased that the OFT has cleared our acquisition of Affinity Healthcare Group and we now look forward to commencing the process that will ensure the Affinity hospitals operate as part of the larger Priory Group.

“The Affinity hospitals provide high quality services and will fit well into the hospital division operated at Priory. We look forward to working with Commissioners who currently purchase services from both hospital groups.”

Mr Scott added: “This transaction would simply not have been possible without the support of Royal Bank of Scotland. In providing the equity via RBS Special Opportunities Fund and the debt via the UK corporate banking team, Priory has been able to complete this acquisition at a time when the credit markets have been much more challenging. We are therefore delighted that RBS has fully supported management’s strategy of sector consolidation.”

CONTACT: Caroline Walker on 01325 383886 Pic caption: Philip Scott, chief executive officer of Priory Group A HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOGRAPH/VIDEO TO ACCOMPANY THIS NEWS RELEASE CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM http://www.recognitionpr.co.uk/journalistarea-story.asp?id=8027

Notes to editors:

Working with over 80 primary care trusts and referring trusts, Affinity Healthcare is a specialist provider of complex adult and young people’s mental health services, operating almost 270 beds across three hospital sites. Collaboration and partnership with the NHS is key to Affinity’s success and the team have established long and successful relationships with PCTs, mental health trusts and other stakeholders.

Services currently include:-

• Psychiatric Intensive Care
• Eating Disorders Services
• Young People’s Services
• Secure Women’s Services
• Low Secure Rehabilitation and Recovery
• Forensic Low Secure Services
• Open Rehabilitation in a ‘step-down intensive’ therapeutic environment for men
• Complex low-stimulus rehabilitation for men
• Community-based rehabilitation
• Primary Care Therapy Services

The Priory Group is the UK’s leading independent provider of acute mental health services, secure and step-down services, specialist education, complex care and neuro-rehabilitation services, working in partnership with the public and independent sectors.

First Specialist Mental Health Service for Young People gets the go-ahead

Press release - 07 September 2009

Fewer teenagers with urgent mental health problems will need to travel to England for treatment after a leading provider of adolescent services to the National Health Service was given the go-ahead to set up Northern Ireland’s first comprehensive and specialist adolescent service.

Affinity Healthcare aims to treat up to 30 inpatients and provide a further 12 day-care places for young people aged between 13 and 18 at a new Adolescent Mental Health Unit on a 14-acre site in Ballyclare.

Last year a number of young people had to travel to England for treatment and others were treated on adult wards . There has been a rise in the number of teenage boys committing suicide in the 10 years to 2006: from 11 to 21 deaths per 100,000 population.

Newtonabbey Borough Council approved the plan for the Ballyclare unit at a meeting held on Monday 7 September.

The unit will provide:

• Between 8 and 10 psychiatric intensive care beds
• 24 general psychiatric beds providing for a wide range of conditions.
• 12 places for day-care
• Dedicated class-rooms and specialist equipment for three teachers and one teaching assistant
• Overnight accommodation for parents/guardians/carers to ensure that a patient admitted in crisis can be stabilised as quickly as possible with their support.

NI has proportionately more young people than other parts of the UK: 27% are under-18 compared to 22% in England. It is estimated that between 40 and 70 inpatient CAMHS beds (Bamford Review) are needed in NI. Affinity’s new unit will help to meet this need by complementing and extending existing provision.

A recent government review suggests that families in NI would welcome additional CAMH services.

The Ballyclare facility will provide a similar specialist care pathway to that offered at Cheadle Royal Hospital in south Manchester. The Cheadle young people’s service launched in 2004 is now established as a major provider of complex mental health services to the NHS in the north west and beyond.

Cheadle Royal Hospital director, Ian McComiskie, is leading the work at Ballyclare. He said: “Mental health disorders in young people impact significantly on the lives of those affected and on the quality of life of those around them.

“Wider society pays a high price for the failure to tackle these problems effectively. Collectively the cost is reflected in social disruption, poor educational attainment, physical and mental ill health, anti-social behaviour and the financial cost related to each of these.

“We are pleased with the planning committee’s decision which now clears the way for us to provide the same quality of service to the young people of Northern Ireland that is presently on offer to adolescents referred to Cheadle.

“Affinity Healthcare is looking forward to working in partnership with a wide group of professionals in launching this new service into Northern Ireland. The development provides new career and employment opportunities into the area, coupled with a locally provided specialist service for local young people and their families.

ENDS

For more information contact Sophie Beckingham on 0113 306 0053 or sophie.beckingham@kindredagency.com

Notes to editors

Working with over 80 primary care trusts and referring trusts, Affinity Healthcare is a specialist provider of complex adult and young people’s mental health services. Collaboration and partnership with the NHS is key to Affinity’s success and the team have established long and successful relationships with PCTs, mental health trusts and other stakeholders.

With more than 200 years experience in mental health and operating over 250 inpatient beds across the north of England, Affinity’s ethos of providing high quality, outcome-driven, professional care is central to everything they do. Services currently include:-

• Psychiatric Intensive Care
• Eating Disorders Services
• Young People’s Services
• Secure Women’s Services
• Low Secure Rehabilitation and Recovery
• Forensic Low Secure Services
• Open Rehabilitation in a ‘step-down intensive’ therapeutic environment for men
• Complex low-stimulus rehabilitation for men
• Community-based rehabilitation
• Primary Care Therapy Services

Young People’s Service

Affinity Healthcare provides a range of mental health services for young people aged 13-18 from the Cheadle Royal Hospital site, including an acute admissions unit, psychiatric intensive care and low secure rehabilitation facilities for those with emerging personality disorder and self-harm. Currently offering 38 beds on the hospital site and a residential care facility in the local area Affinity is seeking to grow the service across different geographical areas in line with local NHS commissioning requirements

• Affinity has an understanding and the capacity to manage and successfully treat young people with complex mental health needs
• Affinity Healthcare provides one of the few national young people’s inpatient services, specialising in treating self-harm
• Affinity acknowledges that young people are still being inappropriately placed on adult wards and can offer an alternative care pathway

Health minister Ivan Lewis said in November 2006 that within two years no child under 16 should be treated on adult wards. A number of young people continue to be treated on adult wards in NI, according to RQIA in June 2009.

Suicide trends in the UK and Republic of Ireland over ten years (1997 – 2006) are, according to the Samaritans Annual Report 2008, as follows:

• 7.5% decrease in the UK & Republic of Ireland
• 7% decrease in the UK
• 10% decrease in England
• 12.5% decrease in Scotland
• 14.5% decrease in the Republic of Ireland
• 1% increase in Wales
• 111% increase in Northern Ireland

Between 1997 and 2006 the suicide rate among males aged 14 years and above rise from 11 to 21 deaths per 100,000.

In recent years the UK Government through ‘Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation’ (1999) and subsequent legislation, targeted mental health as one of the areas to improve the overall health of the nation with a commitment to reducing the death rate from suicide and undetermined injury by at least a fifth: saving 4,000 lives by 2010. Services have been developed to impact upon these targets and in the main have been successful across the UK as a whole. The exception to this has been in Northern Ireland where we have seen the rate increase from a total of 138 deaths in 1997 rising to 291in 2006.

Based on work by Kurtz et al and NICAPS it is recognised that around 20 to 40 CAMHS beds are required per one million total population. Therefore, for a population of 1.7 million (Northern Ireland), of which young people represent approximately 27% of total population, the number of beds should be upwards of 40 to 70.

A recent review was commissioned by the Department of Health, ‘Having a Say: An Investigation of service users’ and carers’ views of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Northern Ireland’ (2005). Findings suggest that whilst users and carers valued CAMH services they felt more could be done to help their children and wider families. Major areas for development highlighted include increasing capacity at all tiers of service.

Mental health hospital is first independent organisation to win NAPICU Team of the Year title

Press release - 24 September 2009

A provider of complex mental health services to the NHS has become the first independent organisation to win the National Association of Psychiatric Intensive Care and Low Secure Units ‘Team of the Year’ award.

Affinity Healthcare operates the winning Woodlands Unit at its Cheadle Royal Hospital site in south Manchester. The prestigious title has previously only been awarded to NHS providers. Affinity Healthcare was the only independent provider on NAPICU’s shortlist of four this year.

The Woodlands Unit is a 10-bedded low secure therapeutic rehabilitation service for girls aged 13 to 18 with emergent borderline personality disorders who pose significant levels of risk to themselves or others and require a longer term therapeutic intervention within an inpatient setting. The unit has developed a reputation for working successfully with some of the hardest young people to engage and has made a real difference to their lives. Young people, from across the country, have arrived at Woodlands having spent periods of years in secure care, have turned their difficulties around and then moved on to build new lives in the community.

Woodlands is one of three inpatient units within the Young People's Service at Cheadle Royal Hospital, which offers a comprehensive, integrated and seamless range of mental health care for young people. The service aims to complement existing NHS and Social Services resources by offering provision that is unavailable elsewhere and also to provide the best quality care, which, by achieving results, helps commissioners achieve value for money.

The NAPICU judges were impressed by the team’s honesty and transparency about its teething problems after the initial opening of the unit, and how they overcame those problems to achieve an outstanding unit that achieved 90% on the standards in a recent audit for the Quality Network in Inpatient CAMHS (QNIC).

NAPICU Director of Scientific Programmes, Consultant Psychiatrist and awards judge, Dr Faisil Sethi, said: “There were quite a few strong entries this year for NAPICU Team of the Year. The Woodlands Unit particularly impressed the judges with their strong emphasis on quality, driven by a multidisciplinary team ethic that put the service users at the centre. The March 2009 QNIC report looking at service standards highlighted a number of areas where they were performing extremely well. There were many positive recommendations from the service users which "brought to life" the work that the team had been doing.”

The judges also commented on the unit’s uniqueness, passion, enthusiasm and dedication to its patients and were particularly impressed when the team that presented to the judges rang the young patients back on the ward to say they had been shortlisted for the award. Current service users encouraged the team to enter the awards and were keen to get involved. It was this type of engagement that impressed the judges.

Dr David Kingsley, consultant adolescent psychiatrist, leads the service at Woodlands Unit. He said: “I am privileged to work with a team of people who care deeply about the young people they look after. We work with a challenging client group, but the approach of the team brings out the strengths and character of each young person, offering them new skills and coping strategies which help them to believe that they have something positive to contribute to the world.

“‘Emergent’ personality disorder doesn’t have to become a personality disorder. So far we believe that we have achieved this for a number of young people, and these successes make all the struggles of running a unit like Woodlands worthwhile. This award is fully deserved by all the staff and young people on the unit who have helped us to accomplish what we have in the 18 months that we have been open.”

Woodlands Ward Manager Donna Dale said: “The judges struggled to make a decision as we are in the independent sector. In past years only NHS trusts have won so it’s a big achievement for us to be the first independent sector organisation to win. The whole team and our young people are delighted. We also received many compliments at the awards ceremony, in fact, a service user came over at the event and said he believes his life chances would be different had he had access to a similar service in his youth.”

For further information about the conference and presentations from the event, go to www.napicu.org.uk

-Ends –

For more information, contact Emily Fozard on 0113 306 0077 or emily.fozard@affinityhealth.co.uk

Notes to Editors

The NAPICU’s 14th annual conference was held at Warwick University on September 10th and 11th, 2009. Over 250 delegates attended the event which focused on Quality: Outcomes and Accreditation. The NAPICU is a multi disciplinary clinician lead organisation committed to the development of psychiatric intensive care and low secure services primarily in the UK. The aim of NAPICU is to advance the care and treatment of those people who require Psychiatric Intensive Care and low secure units in acute services. It promotes this through sharing good practice, providing education and training, encouraging clinicians to establish networks and by undertaking research and audit.

Working with over 80 PCTs and referring trusts, Affinity Healthcare is a specialist provider of complex adult and young people’s mental health services. Collaboration and partnership with the NHS is key to Affinity’s success and the team have established long and successful relationships with PCTs, mental health trusts and other stakeholders.

With more than 200 years experience in mental health and operating over 250 inpatient beds across the north of England, Affinity’s ethos of providing high quality, outcome-driven, professional care is central to everything they do.

Services currently include:-

• Psychiatric Intensive Care
• Eating Disorders Services
• Young People’s Services
• Secure Women’s Services
• Low Secure Rehabilitation and Recovery
• Forensic Low Secure Services
• Open Rehabilitation in a ‘step-down intensive’ therapeutic environment for men
• Complex low-stimulus rehabilitation for men
• Community-based rehabilitation
• Primary Care Therapy Services

Affinity Healthcare provides one of the few national young people’s inpatient services, specialising in treating self-harm

Affinity has an understanding and the capacity to manage and successfully treat young people who self-harm

Affinity acknowledges that young people are still being inappropriately placed on adult wards and can offer an alternative care pathway.

www.affinityhealth.co.uk

Affinity Healthcare is exhibiting at

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