Delayed discharges, unsuitable living conditions and inappropriate services are behind excessive bed shortages for mental health patients, an inquiry has found.
The interim report from the Commission on Acute Adult Psychiatric Care found that 92% of consultants in the 122 acute wards surveyed said they treated patients who could have been treated elsewhere if other services had been available.
Mental health services spent millions of pounds sending patients hundreds of miles for beds last year as use of ‘out of area’ hospitals increased by almost a quarter, research by Community Care and BBC News has found.
PUBLIC MEETING CENTRAL HALL MANCHESTER CITY CENTRE
AGENDA !
Methodist Central Buildings Central Hall Oldham Street Manchester UK LAN M1 1JQ Tel: 161 2361185
Tuesday 7th July 2015, 6.30pm.
The latest Mental Health cut. (Harpurhey Wellbeing Centre)
A mental health advocacy group has accused Manchester’s mental health trust of ‘harassing’ its members in an attempt to ‘cut off an avenue for mental health patients and campaigners’.
Manchester Users Network (MUN) say Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust’s ‘increasingly hostile communications’ have led to ‘anxiety and distress’ amongst members, who are all users of mental health services.
Bosses at Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust say they have temporarily closed Cedar Ward at North Manchester General Hospital and have now moved the beds across town to Wythenshawe Hospital.
They say the decision was taken to address ‘staffing pressures’ on the ward, which treats elderly men for conditions including dementia.
The ward’s closure means the trust’s Park House facility at North Manchester has lost 20 beds.
The Conservative government will invest the extra £1.25bn in children’s mental health services over the next parliament that was promised by the coalition prior to the election, the Department of Health has said.
The funding pledge was included in the coalition’s 2015-16 budget proposals set out in March. But the Conservatives election victory means that chancellor George Osborne will announce an ‘emergency budget’ in July that will replace the coalition plans with his party’s own spending commitments.
Magic mushrooms and LSD should be legally reclassified so they can be used to treat common mental health problems, a leading psychiatrist has said.
James Rucker, honorary lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, said legal restrictions should be lifted on psychedelic drugs, which could provide an effective treatment for anxiety and addictions.
Writing in the BMJ, he said legal restrictions imposed on the medical use of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and psilocybin, the compound found in “magic” mushrooms, make medical research into their benefits almost impossible.