There are “serious and deeply ingrained problems” with child and adolescent mental health services, officials warn.
The Health Select Committee says the whole system – from prevention and early intervention through to inpatient services – has issues.
While demand for care is rising, in many parts of the country funding is being frozen or cut.
The government said it had launched a taskforce to drive up standards, and was investing money in mental health.
Turned away
The Health Select Committee, which received the most written submissions for any inquiry it has held this Parliament, was particularly concerned about children and young people being taken to police cells rather than hospital.
“People who are in need of psychiatric admission should have the right to be treated in a local hospital”
A mental health service has said it is being forced to send patients almost 200 miles away for treatment because it is struggling to meet demand for beds.
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust said it operates at 100% capacity for a majority of the time.
It said beds will “always be found” in an emergency, but patients have been sent as far as Brighton and Carlisle.
Millions of UK workers fear reporting mental health conditions !
Huge numbers of UK workers are hiding mental health conditions from their employers for fear of it affecting their job, according to Friends Life.
A poll from One Poll for the insurance firm, which surveyed more than 2,000 people, found that more than 50% of all workers believe being open about a common mental health problem would damage their career prospects.
The UK working-age population is more than 38 million, according to the Office for National Statistics.
So more than 19 million workers in the UK could be worried about reporting a common mental health problem to their employers.
Prioritising Mental Health Research
Many things are unprecedented about the run-up to next year’s general election, but perhaps one of the least anticipated is the prominence mental health has acquired. There has been something of a slow-motion pile-up aspect to mental health care over the past few years, as reports of the devastating effects of cuts, including chronic bed shortages and patients put at risk have kept on coming. Despite ministerial overtures lately about “parity of esteem” between mental and physical health, ask people in need of counselling or of a bed on an acute ward if provision is meeting needs and the answer will be an unequivocal “No”.
The justice secretary says he wants to “really get to grips with the challenge of mental health in prisons” soon after next year’s general election. “I want every prisoner who needs it to have access to the best possible treatment. I want mental health to be the priority for our system,” he said in a speech on Monday to the Centre for Crime and Social Justice in London.
A report this week was grim reading for those involved in mental health care. The survey of GPs revealed that one in five had seen patients harmed as a result of “delays or a lack of support” from mental health services, while shortfalls had forced 82 per cent of doctors to act “outside of their competence”. While this news is shocking, it is just another example of the UK’s mental health care crisis.
Just last week, data obtained from freedom of information requests led to claims that the NHS treated mental health care as a “second-class service”. Indeed, thousands of mentally ill patients have been forced to travel “hundreds of miles” for treatment in recent years. Extreme cases have seen patients being forcibly sectioned so that they can receive care in overcrowded wards. Even medical students have resorted to asking for greater teaching on psychiatry, highlighting the derisory attention that mental health issues receive. Yet the state of mental health services is unsurprising considering that they receive only 13 per cent of the NHS budget, despite mental illness affecting around a quarter of the UK population.
Dr. John Rengen Virapen worked 35 years for Eli Lilly & Co as an executive. He now speaks out on the many crimes “Big Pharma” was and is responsible for and he himself also participated in. Unfortunately, many of its crimes go passed public awareness as it enjoys the unethical protection from its big allies, the mainstream media, the FDA and governments.
“In this unique autobiographical feature, Tony Benn – one of the UK’s most influential and charismatic political figures – presents his personal reflections on life, work, love and loss through intimate, confessional interviews, wonderfully illustrated by his personal photographic and film archives. Criss-crossing the UK, he bears witness to major social and political upheavals and events that influenced him during his life and political career.”
In November of two thousand and seven, eighty-three [83] cross party MP signed an early day motion sponsored by Manchester MP John Leech, in July of 2007. Let us not forget what was said back then in the House of Commons about Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust (MMH&SCT) who had a bad record when it came to free speech.
