UNC Health, Wake County fail to reach agreement at WakeBrook
The Wake County Justice Center in downtown Raleigh.
ssharpe@newsobserver.com
Services at WakeBrook Behavioral Health, which provides mental health care and substance use treatment for thousands of people, could be disrupted as the county seeks a new mental health provider.
UNC Health will discontinue services at WakeBrook, a county-owned facility, on Sept. 30 after months of negotiations between the health care provider and the county broke down.
“In a perfect world the transition would be seamless, and there would not be any disruption in service,” County Manager David Ellis said Monday. “Hopefully, the impact will be minimal. But I cannot sit up here and promise that there will not be any disruption.”
Ellis briefed the Wake County Board of Commissioners during a meeting.
“UNC Health is proud of the much-needed care and services provided to thousands of patients at Wake County’s WakeBrook facility during the past 10 years,” said Alan Wolf, spokesperson for UNC Health in a written statement.
“We expanded the care available, opened new beds and added new services, including a primary care clinic,” the statement continued. “UNC Health remains committed to providing excellent care at WakeBrook through September, as feasible with sufficient staffing. We will work with patients and their families, community partners and other stakeholders to provide a smooth transition to a new healthcare provider at WakeBrook, once identified.”
More than 8,000 people received services in WakeBrook’s inpatient services unit and more than 5,000 people received services in its alcohol detox unit during fiscal year 2022, according to the Wake County budget.
Timeline disagreement
Wake County says it was notified in March 2023 that UNC Health would change “their service delivery model to focus on children and adolescents” and that some programs, including the detox and facility-based crisis programs, at WakeBrook would end June 30, according to a Wake County news release. The other programs would end Dec. 31.
In its own statement, UNC Health said it approached Wake County about negotiating a 10-year contract two years ago. On Dec. 20, 2022, UNC Health said it received a letter from Wake County saying the county would only enter into a one-year lease agreement of the facility. This coincided with Wake County pursuing an assessment of its mental health crisis system, which was published in May.
“Based on this letter and the unknown outcome of the assessment, UNC Health provided a plan to ramp down services at WakeBrook over the next 18 months,” Wolf said in the statement.
“Since then, UNC Health and Wake County continued negotiations about service options for the facility,” the statement continued. “UNC Health presented options for Wake County to consider in maintaining the operations of the 28-bed inpatient unit. These options centered around UNC Health’s need to operate this facility for at least 10 years in order to attract and retain the highest quality providers. In the end, Wake County chose to go in a different direction.”
UNC Health and Wake County agreed in April to extend the contract for inpatient and crisis assessment services through June 30, 2024, according to Wake County’s news release.
“However, when news of the contract fluctuations reached WakeBrook staff, it caused uncertainty among the employees,” according to the release. “Some left their positions, and it became difficult for UNC Health to hire temporary clinical personnel. Due to staffing shortages, UNC Health had to reduce the number of patients they could serve sooner than anticipated.”
Several Wake County commissioners expressed remorse the two groups could not work things out,
“This is an unfortunate development,” Commissioner Vice Chair Susan Evans said. “I think we all know that. As a region we haven’t had adequate systems to effectively address mental health challenges for quite some time.”
Wake County is searching for a new service provider at WakeBrook.
This story was originally published July 10, 2023, 5:49 PM.
Anna Johnson covers Raleigh and Wake County for the News & Observer. She has previously covered city government, crime and business for newspapers across North Carolina and received many North Carolina Press Association awards, including first place for investigative reporting. She is a 2012 alumna of Elon University.
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