The hospital became famous during the 1950s for developing the first electroencephalograph (EEG) – a machine to record electrical activity in the brain - for mental health use. Built by two scientists, Dr C S Parker and Mr Charles Breakall, out of old war surplus material they bought for £2.10, the men’s pioneering research drew worldwide acclaim, and the EEG is still in use today.

The 1960s saw the hospital enter its dark period. Students working at the hospital witnessed what they perceived as widespread malpractice and poor standards of training. Beginning with a complaint from one student nurse about St Luke’s, followed by a steady stream from many others, the negative word of mouth caught traction, but the hospital management ignored all complaints. In 1967 a book entitled ‘Sans Everything’ was published which described poor conditions in long-stay institutions such as Whittingham. On 18 July 1967, the student nurses association held a meeting with the head tutor in the chair, voicing their concerns and lodging serious complaints of cruelty, ill treatment and fraud. The Head Male Nurse shot them down, threatening to take them to court for libel and slander, and demanded the names of all students who wrote complaints. The students backed down. Nothing changed until 1968 when a new Psychologist began working there. He was shocked at the conditions in the hospital, and called another meeting with the students and Head Male Nurse. Once again, the Nurse ordered them to shut up and deal with it, and the meeting ended. Thankfully, this time the Hospital Management Committee heard about the meeting and removed both the Head Male Nurse and Matron from their positions.

An inquiry was launched and many details came to light. The complaints of ill treatment of patients referred to four wards, two female and two male, the worst being ward 16 (female), all within St Luke’s division. The complaints listed: patients left untreated; patients given only bread and jam, regardless of menu; given a spoon only regardless of diet; food mixed up and served as “slops”; patients restricted in fluids during and after meals; put to bed in only vests; patients routinely stolen from by staff; left queuing on the stairs waiting for a bath; certain patients punched and locked in store rooms under the stairs; patients put out and locked out in the airing courts, regardless of weather conditions; certain patients locked in the washrooms; cockroaches and ants infesting the building and crawling all over patients; patients being dragged by the hair; patients receiving the infamous ‘wet towel treatment’, where a wet towel was twisted around a patient’s neck until they lost consciousness, and, most shockingly of all, it was alleged that two male nurses had poured methylated spirits into the slippers of one patient and into the dressing gown pocket of another, and set them alight. The list went on, and the inquiry found a vast litany of problems, including major fraud and embezzlement occurring in the Administration building. One Charge Nurse was famously quoted as saying, “if you were not in on the corruption, you didn’t get on”.

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