SWINDON’S only health-based place of safety will close in early March, it has been confirmed.

Those experiencing a mental health crisis will be taken to Green Lane Hospital in Devizes for assessment by health professionals. The temporary closure of the place of safety suite at Sandalwood Court, Stratton, is expected to last 12 months.

The closures come after shortages of trained professionals and the introduction of new rules that cut the length of time people detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act can be assessed from 72 hours to just 24.

The moves have proven controversial. At a council meeting on Tuesday where the March closure was confirmed, campaigners raised fears about sick mental health detainees being taken to the Devizes place of safety in the back of police cars and ambulances.

Samantha Wathen of Keep Our NHS Public queried how it would be “efficient use of resources” to use emergency ambulances.

In a written answer, Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) said that Wiltshire Police – rather than the ambulance service – convey the “vast majority” of detainees to the places of safety and had been “very supportive” of the new proposals.

“The increase in journey time is not expected to have an adverse effect on their resource when compare to the service improvement from the consultation,” they wrote.

Ann Mooney, chairman of disbanded mental health network SUNS, hit out at the use of police officers to transport those in crisis, asking: “Do any of you round this table know what it’s like for the police to pull up at our house and take us away, being treated like criminals?”

At the civic offices on Tuesday night, AWP, which operate the Swindon place of safety facility, stressed that the wider Sandalwood Court mental health hospital would not be closing.

And AWP's Swindon chief Newlands Anning said that the NHS trust planned to invest cash in a day service.

He told councillors: “What we are looking to do is pilot a new service model that is called an acute community unit, which is along the lines of a day hospital that’s not a day hospital.

“It’s a resource and environment where we can support people in the community and prevent them from deteriorating further.

“So, preventing people from being detained under section 136, preventing people from becoming so unwell they end up coming into hospital either by choice or detained under the Mental Health Act and facilitating people out of hospital quicker."

He said that the new plans contradicted suggestions from some councillors and campaigners that AWP were “de-investing” from Swindon.

“I think it’s a good news story for the public in Swindon.We know we need to look at new ways of working.”

The new unit would be based at Sandalwood Court and is expected to complement plans for a Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group-backed “Calming Café”.

Based in the town centre, this “café” would be open between 6pm and 1am and would offer another place to take unwell mental health patients. The facility – for which £100,000 has been set aside – would not be another health-based place of safety, Swindon CCG stressed. It would not “replace” the Sandalwood suite.