The security panic created by the Fallon report meant that the Labour government asked Sir Richard Tilt an ex-director of the prison service to undertake an enquiry into the security of all three high security hospitals in England.
Despite a very small problem concerning so-called “escapes” (usually runaways from escorted leave) and despite paying little attention to the main security device in a hospital, relational security, Tilt decided to recommend further external boundaries in the form of high metal fences around each of the hospitals outside their existing substantial brick walls.
From a cash-strapped NHS millions of pounds were immediately found by the government to put up these fences.
