By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

THREE TAYSIDE patients with learning disabilities have finally been moved out of the State Hospital at Carstairs.

The patients spent years in the high security hospital—where Dundee killer Robert Mone was a former patient—because there was no more appropriate place for them to go.

NHS Tayside chief executive Professor Tony Wells said yesterday the patients had recently been placed in more suitable, lower security accommodation on the outskirts of Dundee.

Their move came after they successfully appealed against being detained in conditions of excessive security, using new legislation that came in to force in April last year.

The legislation was aimed at ensuring patients were no longer left to languish in Carstairs or elsewhere when they were ready to move on.

It was also designed to prevent people being sent there in the first place because of a lack of more suitable options elsewhere.

In the run-up to the legislation coming in to force, health boards came under pressure to provide more suitable accommodation and deliver alternative places to care for patients who still required to be kept in locked situations but did not require the high security of detention at Carstairs. NHS Tayside still lacks the full range of options in place to care for mentally disordered offenders.

A £60 million development is planned on the Murray Royal site at Perth, which will offer a mix of purpose built medium and low secure facilities.

Forensic psychiatry services based at Murray Royal have been under pressure for many years. NHS Tayside plans to replace low security wards there and has joined with other health boards to plan a regional medium secure unit for the site.

Several years ago the lack of options for people requiring secure accommodation were publicised by a young mentally disordered offender from Dundee.

Darren Crichton no longer needed the high level of security at Carstairs but there were insufficient medium and low security alternatives to meet the demand for step down care locally at the time.

Yesterday Professor Wells said improved facilities and greater options for moving people on from Carstairs would not end the need to send patients with learning disabilities to Carstairs. He made clear people with learning disabilities were cared for in a unit separate from other patients at the State Hospital.

He said, “There will always be people who have a learning disability who are a danger to themselves or others who require secure accommodation.

“There has always been a unit for people with learning disabilities at the State Hospital.

“They are not just mixed in with everybody else. It is a specialist facility.”