[9] In 1967 the League of Friends of Rampton Hospital was established to provide patient comforts, transport for relatives, and a volunteer befriending scheme.

In April of that year, the hospital, which had previously been administered by the Home Office, became managed by the new Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, a provider of mental health services in the local area.

[12] It has a staff of about 2,000 and provides the national services for patients with a learning disability, women and deaf men requiring high-security care.

Prior to the Second World War, they were required to live on-site, partly because of the remoteness of the site which was regularly cut off by snow in winter.

[2] During the hospital's history it has sometimes been hard to recruit and retain staff - for example, during the war years, because of its isolated location and because of the, at times, stressful nature of the work.

[18] Coral Ward, a six-bed unit within the National High Secure Healthcare Service for Women, which cares for complex and challenging patients with mental illness, personality disorders and learning disabilities, won the Team of the Year award at the 2019 HSJ Patient Safety Awards.

[20] It was billed as a groundbreaking look inside the hitherto 'secret world' of a special hospital, and has been cited in a "top ten" of television programmes which occasioned intense public debate,[21] being awarded an International Emmy.

[22] A follow-up television broadcast a few weeks later further alleged that the immediate effect within the hospital had amounted to a few scapegoat prosecutions while the status quo continued as before, except that no staff member could trust another not to be a whistle-blower.

The report found serious problems relating to the geographical and professional isolation of the hospital, its failure of leadership and its difficulty in recruiting staff as well as its focus on containing troublesome patients rather than providing proper therapy for them.

[24] However, the documentary was controversial and was rebuffed by (among others) Bassetlaw MP Joe Ashton, who pointed out that far from being 'secret', Rampton had been subjected to regular reports and examinations by a wide variety of public bodies over many years; that it saw over 1,000 visitors a year; and that the two patients who made the allegations were not reliable witnesses, as they both had serious mental health problems and had committed serious crimes after being released.

Ashton highlighted a wide range of issues he regarded as being unfair in subsequent media coverage and characterised the situation as "trial by television", commenting that staff were unable to refute the allegations because they were bound by the Official Secrets Act and the confidentiality requirements of their job.

He noted that the Boynton report did not uphold the core allegations: "It recommended about 200 changes to the hospital, of which 195 were fairly trivial technical administrative changes which were in progress anyway.