Ashworth Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital at Maghull

Maghull

Maghull is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in Merseyside, England. The town is located eight miles north of the City of Liverpool and south of Ormskirk in West Lancashire. The area of Moss Side also contains HM Prison Kennet and Ashworth Hospital. Maghull had a...

 in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside

Merseyside

Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Ashworth is one of only three high-security specialist psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales, along with Rampton

Rampton Secure Hospital

Rampton Secure Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital near the village of Woodbeck between Retford and Rampton in the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire, England...

 and Broadmoor

Broadmoor Hospital

Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital at Crowthorne in the Borough of Bracknell Forest in Berkshire, England. It is the best known of the three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England, the other two being Ashworth and Rampton...

, that exist to work with people who require treatment due to their "dangerous, violent or criminal propensities". Ashworth was formed from the merger of the old Moss Side Hospital (originally a learning-disability unit once used for the treatment of "shell shock

Shell Shock

Shell Shock, also known as 82nd Marines Attack was a 1964 film by B-movie director John Hayes. The film takes place in Italy during World War II, and tells the story of a sergeant with his group of soldiers....

" in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

) and the vastly more modern and considerably more appropriate Park Lane Hospital, opened as a Broadmoor overspill unit in the early 1970s.

The hospital has had a mixed history and has been the subject of two major public inquiries: Blom-Cooper in 1992 and Fallon

Fallon

- Locations :France* Fallon, Haute-Saône, a communeUnited States*Fallon, California*Fallon, Montana*Fallon County, Montana*Fallon, Nevada*Fallon Station, Nevada*Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada*Fallon Indian Reservation, Nevada*Fallon, Roanoke, Virginia...

 in 1998.