Boost to mental health services

A £2m recruitment drive is to begin next week to find staff for a new £8.2m psychiatric intensive care and low secure unit for Norfolk.

Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Foundation Trust will recruit 60 staff starting with an open day on World Mental Health Day on 10 October.

The unit, due to open next May, will be the only NHS-provided psychiatric unit of its kind in the county.

The new building will be on a site at Hellesdon Hospital, outside Norwich.

Currently, those needing psychiatric intensive care receive their treatment outside Norfolk.

The facility will also provide low secure beds - the Trust's second low secure unit.

Maggie Wheeler, chair of the Trust, said: "It will be of real benefit to the people in Norfolk and Waveney who need this level of care and will no longer have to travel out of the county for treatment.

"The extra jobs will of course also boost the local economy in this time of financial worry for many."