Ashworth Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Maghull, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Liverpool. It is a part of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, catering to patients with psychiatric health needs that require treatment in conditions of high security. The hospital is one of only four psychiatric hospitals in the United Kingdom providing psychiatric care within conditions of high security, and one of only three in England (alongside Broadmoor Hospital in Crowthorne and Rampton Secure Hospital near Woodbeck). For Scotland and Northern Ireland, the facility meeting the same high security environment is the State Hospital in Carstairs. Organisation Ashworth is one of the three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales, alongside Rampton and Broadmoor, that exist to work with people who require treatment due to their "dangerous, violent or criminal propensities", with the majority experiencing psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia, comorbid or other personality disorders. Ashworth currently has 14 wards. Five locked wards constitute the personality disorder unit. A wide variety of pharmacological, rehabilitative and psychological treatments are available. Rehabilitative and creative activity is supported with patients frequently entering work for the Koestler awards winning 27 prizes in 2011. In collaboration with The Reader Organisation reading groups have been set up in which staff and patients read literature together, promoting confidence and developing communication and other skills. History Early History The hospital has its origins in Moss Side House, a children's home established on the site in 1878. It served as a Red Cross hospital during the First World War. Park Lane Hospital opened as a Broadmoor overspill unit on the site in 1974. Moss Side Hospital and Park Lane Hospital merged to form Ashworth Hospital in 1989. The name "Ashworth Hospital" was chosen by a ballot among patients and staff. Industrial action In 1987 members of the Prison Officers Association, which then represented almost all the nurses were involved in a dispute during which more than 200 patients were locked in their rooms for 23 hours per day for 10 days. Blom-Cooper Inquiry Following a 1988 television documentary which alleged that a patient, Sean Walton, had died after being beaten by staff allegedly with a snooker cue and a series of other serious allegations, a Committee of Inquiry into Complaints about Ashworth Hospital, Merseyside, headed by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, was set up; it published its findings in 1992. Blom-Cooper was highly critical of the regime, which