'... what is the kerfuffle going to be like?'

Managing the closure of an institution: an oral history

Nigel Ingham

Remembering the early 1980s, Dave Spencer, then a trainee student nurse at the Royal Albert Hospital, Lancaster, wondered, 'What is the kerfuffle going to be like?' The 'kerfuffle' being the process of running down this large long stay Victorian establishment for people with learning difficulties, involving the resettlement of well over 500 residents and the displacement of an equivalent number of staff.

Shutting its doors in 1996, this journey of institutional closure took between 10 and 15 years and is the focus of this paper, based upon a number of oral history interviews with individuals who were senior staff at the Royal Albert Hospital during the 1980s and 1990s. Their management stories provide a fascinating insight into the complex nature of implementation of an aspect of learning disability policy, which had such an enormous impact upon the lives of so many individuals.