THE organisation providing a range of mental health services in Wyre Forest had a surplus of £243,000 for the past financial year.

Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership has issued its annual report and accounts for 2004-05, highlighting projects carried out in Kidderminster, while looking ahead to plans for the future development of Stourport's Lucy Baldwin Hospital site.

During the year, the trust earned three stars status - the highest rating - after losing stars a year earlier due to a technicality.

In-patient mental health beds are provided at Kidderminster Hospital, where staff on ward D2 are involved in the Kings Fund project, which is intended improve the hospital environment for patients and visitors.

The fund, whose president is the Prince of Wales, set a team to work a year ago to redesign ward D2's foyer and reception area. Among the results of that will be commissioning of a work of art, to be paid for with a £35,000 grant from the fund.

Another aspect of the trust's work, according to the annual report, was the publication this year of a 20-year review of trends in deliberate self-harm by Kidderminster psychologists in a respected international mental health journal.

The study involved 4,474 individual cases of self-harm and was one of the largest sample sizes in the specialist clinical area in the UK.

As part of the trust's continuing programme of refurbishment and development, it was decided that buildings on the Lucy Baldwin Hospital site were unable to meet modern standards.

Services the trust has concluded are needed in future include a 25-place day hospital, nursing home beds and a range of day services and activities.

Proposals for the Lucy Baldwin site went to public consultation between March and May this year, with four public meetings held to find out the views of people in Wyre Forest.

According to the trust, there was "general support" for the proposals.

The trust, which also provides inpatient beds in Worcester, Redditch and Bromsgrove, caters for inpatients with learning disabilities in Malvern and Bromsgrove and manages rehabilitation services across Worcestershire.