BBC article: Specialist mental health unit failures exposed by patients

[Sly Saint]

There are serious concerns over the standards of specialist care being provided to patients with the most complex mental health needs, a BBC investigation has found.

Patients sent by the NHS to stay in mental health rehabilitation units say they have been placed in unsafe environments, often far from home, with untrained staff.

Experts say not enough is being done to regulate the sector, which costs the NHS half a billion pounds a year.

The units, run by both NHS and independent providers, treat at least 3,500 patients each year considered too challenging for standard hospital settings.

They aim to offer a specialised approach, enabling patients to recover with skills to manage their conditions and re-enter the community. But some have remained there for 10 or more years, the BBC's File on 4 programme has found.

By 2019, Lissa had spent years struggling with her mental health, having experienced traumatic life events. She was diagnosed with mixed personality disorder and depression.

So when the NHS sent her to a unit in Coventry run by Cygnet Health Care for a specialist talking therapy, she agreed.

Lissa, then aged 35, questioned why she was being sent there, but was "desperate" for help.

She says staff failed to treat her with dignity and respect. Her mental health deteriorated and after two weeks she was detained under the Mental Health Act for her own protection. She tried to take her own life 32 times within her first six months there.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59964353

 

[Arvo]

Poor woman.

Experts say not enough is being done to regulate the sector

Now there's a neon sign truth.

(Different angle of course but only yesterday or something I commented to someone on how psychiatry should be better regulated, especially given their track record they deserve eagle eye monitoring, not the trust that the sector can regulate itself.)

UK/Dutch synchronised reporting, this was the news on the Dutch public broadcaster today:

Onderzoek: meeste jongeren komen beschadigd uit gesloten jeugdzorg | NOS (Research: most young people leave closed youth mental health care damaged)
76 percent of youths who had to stay there reports having gotten additional mental health problems, a foundation calls for stopping closed youth mental health care and developing alternatives.

 

[Arnie Pye]

One problem with the mental health sector is that more and more private companies, several of them US-based, have managed to get contracts in the UK to provide mental health services. And if your profits depend on not releasing patients then you simply don't release them. Some rather old (2017 / 2018), but interesting, links that I bookmarked on the subject :

Title : An alarming rise in mental-health sectioning in Britain
Subtitle : Fewer psychiatric beds and growing risk-aversion among doctors may be to blame
Link : https://web.archive.org/web/2018052...g-rise-in-mental-health-sectioning-in-britain

Title : Psychiatric Chain Under Investigation for Billing Fraud & Abuse in U.S. Now Buys U.K. Behavioral Facilities
Link : https://www.cchrint.org/2017/01/16/...on-fraud-abuse-buys-uk-behavioral-facilities/

Title : Universal Health Services Psychiatric Hospital Chain Under Department of Defense & FBI Investigation
Link : https://www.cchrint.org/2017/06/05/uhs-under-investigation/

Title : Behavioral Rehabilitation Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Application (Anxiety, Mood, Substance Abuse, Personality, Attention Deficit Disorders), By Healthcare Settings (Inpatient, Residential, and Outpatient), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025
Link : https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/behavioral-rehabilitation-market