In the shadow of the asylum: the Stanley Royd Salmonella outbreak of 1984

Abstract

In August 1984, an outbreak of Salmonella at Stanley Royd Psychiatric Hospital in Yorkshire led to the deaths of 19 elderly residents. It was an incident that attracted a good deal of comment in both the local and national press, and one that had enduring relevance for ideas about psychiatric care, food handling and catering provisions, hospital management and the official inspection of medical institutions. This article examines the impact that the 1984 outbreak had on official and popular perceptions of these issues. As well as bringing to public attention the fact that large numbers of vulnerable elderly patients were long-term residents in psychiatric hospitals, the Salmonella outbreak highlighted the inadequacies of Victorian hospital buildings in modern healthcare. Throughout the press reports and official investigations examined here, the provenance of Stanley Royd was repeatedly emphasised; its Victorian fabric persistently interfered with cleaning regimes, cold storage facilities and the conveyance of food to patients. Within institutions like Stanley Royd, 'new' and 'old' risks came together--the microscopic bacterium and the crumbling nineteenth-century building--to create a strong critique of existing psychiatric care. The episode also highlighted broader problems within the NHS, such as systems of management and the status of psychogeriatrics as a specialism.

After the madhouses: the emotional politics of psychiatry and community care in the UK tabloid press 1980–1995

“…In fact, the rate of discharge was so accelerated that by 1971 the Department of Health and Social Security was anticipating ‘ the complete abolition of the mental hospital system within fifteen to twenty years’ (Scull 1977, 29). This process of deinstitutionalisation of psychiatric patients was driven by financial expediency; an increasing disillusionment with the efficacy and ethics of institutional care; the increasing effectiveness and psychopharmaceuticals; and a series of scandals exposing the mistreatment of patients in long-stay psychiatric institutions (; Hilton 2017; Payne 1999; Taylor 2015, Wallis 2016). As Sarah Payne notes, ‘the principle of caring for people with mental health problems outside of hospital has been welcomed, particularly by user groups and survivor networks’ (Payne 1999, 244).…”

“…Asylums continued to shape the public image of madness and psychiatry well into the second half of the 20th century. It took this high-profile and polemical piece of legislation and a series of high-profile and violent scandals (Hilton 2017, Wallis 2016) to bring the reality of asylum closures into the eye of the UK public, destabilising a hitherto fixed emotional field in which stereotypes relating to madness, gender and violence interlocked and reinforced one another.…”