I've spend significant time in both acute wards and long term/private units. They really are miles apart! Acute wards are understaffed with too many patients. It's essentially a holding area and so you get patients with all kinds of illnesses under the same roof. It's not a great atmosphere, and there's no proper therapy structure.
Long stay units are completely different. They are geared up for certain patients (ie a personality disorder service that treats women using DBT) and so everything is structured and planned. There are lots of groups and chances to talk to someone. However the flip side is you are expected to work hard on your recovery and you cannot do nothing all day like you can on an acute ward. The private DBT unit I was on locked our bedrooms during the day so we'd have to go to groups and not stay in bed!
The food might not be any better it depends if it's cooked fresh on site or not. And the ward can sometimes still be quite chaotic, it's not guaranteed to be quieter all of the time. But overall it is definitely better to be on a long stay unit.
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