Bethlem Royal Hospital - 750th Year Anniversary and "Reclaim Bedlam" Campaign

750th Year Anniversary and "Reclaim Bedlam" Campaign

In 1997 the Bethlem hospital started planning celebrations of its history on the occasion of its 750th anniversary. The service user perspective was not to be included, however, and members of the Psychiatric survivors movement saw nothing to celebrate in either the original Bedlam or in current mental health care. A campaign called "Reclaim Bedlam" was launched by Pete Shaugnessey, which was supported by hundreds of patients and ex-patients and widely reported in the media. A sit-in was held outside the earlier Bedlam site at the Imperial War Museum. The historian Roy Porter called the Bethlem Hospital "a symbol for man's inhumanity to man, for callousness and cruelty."

Until the 1990s, the hospital and its grounds were in the London Borough of Croydon, but were swapped with the London Borough of Bromley for South Norwood Country Park. This has meant that the hospital is now located in a community which it does not primarily serve (although as many of its services meet the needs of people from across England and Wales and even Gibraltar, to judge its location by its ability to serve a local population conveniently may not be entirely appropriate).