We need your help to stop the closure of Manchester’s Brian Hore Unit, a historic mental health and alcohol treatment centre that has saved many thousands of lives. 

The Brian Hore Unit has served the city for 42 years. In many ways, it is the birthplace of modern day alcoholism treatment in Britain. It is highly regarded as a shining beacon of NHS provision and a model example of patient/staff cooperation. 

With the Unit’s help, hundreds of people, some with very tough lives, maintain their sobriety, stay in work and care for their families. And yet, on March 31, Manchester City Council and its contractor CRI plan to close the service, which normally serves over 900 patients. 

Patients at the Unit, who come from across the whole of the city, were told this devastating news just seven weeks ago. Although we are vulnerable group, most with underlying mental health issues, we decided we owe it ourselves and those who will come after us to fight back.

A court case is in the offing – the first hearing is on March 29 – and we have the support of many local politicians. But time is running out and, so far, both Manchester City Council officials and CRI have refused to budge.

We’re asking people to sign this petition in order to persuade both to think again, redraw the current service design, and let the Brian Hore Unit continue with its good work.

Why is this closure happening?

Manchester City Council recently handed a two-year £6 million contract for alcohol and drug treatment services to CRI, an organisation which already runs a number of drug treatment services in the city.

CRI, which is relatively new to the alcohol treatment business, does not want to take over the Brian Hore Unit. It sees no need for long-term support of the Brian Hore Unit's service users, many of whom have been using the service for over 10, 20 or even 30 years. Nor has it been asked, it says, to provide equivalent mental health services for Brian Hore Unit patients.

But the Brian Hore Unit specialises in patients that have both mental health and alcohol problems. It is staffed by psychiatrists and mental health nurses and is currently run on a shoestring budget by Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust.

So this is not just a struggle against privatisation, it is a fight against an invaluable NHS mental health service being snuffed out altogether. The Unit’s closure would mean an end to Manchester’s oldest, most successful and socially inclusive recovery community.

Please help us. The Brian Hore Unit works because it delivers a tough, no-nonsense, abstinence-based message in an NHS setting. To shut it down now, on the eve of a major shakeup of health and social care across Greater Manchester, for the sake of a two-year contract makes no sense. There is no doubt that this closure will cost lives. 

This is not the first time the Unit has suffered the threat of closure. In fact, the present-day Unit was purpose-built after the last big campaign to save it in the 1990s. 

Although we are already seeing the catastrophic effects the impending closure is having on service users (there has already been a suicide attempt), with your help, we are sure that we can win again.

You can read more about the campaign to save the Brian Hore Unit at the Friends of the Brian Hore Unit website or our Facebook page.