PATIENTS with severe mental health problems were able to watch violent films while being treated at a psychiatric hospital, a report has found.

Two wards at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton, which treats people for conditions including schizophrenia and psychosis, gave access to "films of an extremely aggressive and violent nature", the Healthcare Commission discovered. The watchdog has ordered improvements at the South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, which runs the wards.

The report also criticised conditions at the men-only psychiatric intensive care ward which the trust runs at Springfield University Hospital in Tooting. Paranoid schizophrenic John Barrett escaped from the unit in September 2004 before fatally stabbing cyclist Dennis Finnegan in Richmond Park.

Investigators found that there was not enough fresh air in the John Meyer ward, the rooms were stuffy and stale, while the building was in extremely poor condition with dirty and smelly lavatories and showers.

The ward is due to be replaced with a new building in April but the report stated: "In the interim we have concerns that patients continue to be accommodated in a building which is in such a poor state of repair."

The report also criticised the trust for the number of activities available to patients. At Queen Mary's Hospital, computer rooms were locked in wards and staff stayed in their office instead of talking to patients. In one of seven recommendations, the Healthcare Commission urged the staff to provide more therapeutic activities. The watchdog visited the two hospitals after complaints about the state of the wards and the behaviour of staff. The latest visit, in August, came a day after one patient escaped from Springfield while being escorted to St George's Hospital.

The report noted: "Throughout our visit, the behaviour of four out of the nine patients on the John Meyer Ward was unsettled and appeared particularly difficult for staff to manage... this raised some concerns regarding the staff's ability to safely manage patients when the ward is operating at full capacity."

Shadow health minister Mike Penning said: "This is a frightening assessment of an NHS facility in the 21stcentury. Quality of care, cleanliness and the safety of staff should be paramount. The public will rightly expect that significant improvements are made when the situation is reviewed again in six months' time."

A spokeswoman for South West London and St George's Mental Health Trust said: "We have already begun to implement some of the report's recommendations and will undertake to do what remains outstanding.

"The biggest improvement is the opening of our new Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit, part of the new Wandsworth Acute Unit, scheduled for April, when we will close John Meyer Ward. Other actions already taken include extra therapeutic input on our wards and the appointment of a new cleaning contractor and contract."

In November murder suspect John Claydon, 28, and John Slavin, 44, who is accused of burglary, escaped from Springfield Hospital. They were recaptured a week later.

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