The lack of acute beds available to mental health patients has left the system at breaking point, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has said.
Illustrating the scale of the problem, the college said it understood that on one occasion last year there were no beds available for adults in England. It called for action to tackle the problem.
The college president, Simon Wessely, said: “There is mounting evidence – such as the doubling of the number of patients having to be sent out-of-area for care between 2011/12-2013/14 – that there are simply not enough mental health beds available in some areas.
A young woman who was honoured by Princess Anne for her dedication to charity work was found hanged on a hospital ward after she complained of being intimidated by noisy neighbours.
Kimberley Lindfield, 27, a former youth volunteer for St John Ambulance, had filed a report to housing officials about loud music being played next to her rented flat.
The NHS faces unrealistic expectations, says; Michele Moran
Michele Moran, chief executive of Manchester mental health and social care trust, says adapting resources to deliver services for vulnerable people is her biggest challenge
In a nationwide survey 54 per cent of head teachers complained that local mental healthservices were ineffective in supporting the needs of pupils.
Nearly half the heads (47 per cent) said their increasing workloads were affecting their ability to identify pupils’ mental health difficulties at a time when such problems are on the rise in schools.
The survey, by the CentreForum Mental Health Commission also found that one in 10 schools still had no mental health and wellbeing training available for staff, in spite of Government pledges, and 65 per cent were not even assessing the mental health needs of their pupils.
The report comes at a time when emotional and behaviour problems among younger children are increasing because of higher divorce rates, financial pressures at home and the growing influence of social media.
On the day many people will be waking up to the prospect of a fortnight at home, blogger Charlotte Walker shares how she plans to take care of her mental health during the festive season.
I have often found Christmas difficult. This year I’m recovering from a mental health crisis which makes seasonal planning particularly challenging. It’s common to feel under pressure to create a magical Christmas but if you are already stressed, anxious or depressed, that pressure can be magnified.
Criminal Treatment, is how many Mental Health Stakeholders describe the way people who suffer with Severe & Enduring Mental illness are being sent to Prison and are relying on food banks and are homeless, leading to suicide and other premature death, especially in Manchester, after the closure of the Psychiatric Hospital in Central Manchester “Edale”, as Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust are still in debt of £350 000 to Central NHS Manchester Foundation Trust.
E£12m boost to get mental health patients back to workmployment advisers and GPs will also receive training to identify mental health issues and recognise the role of work in improving mental health.
In 1999, Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Stoll published a study showing that omega-3 fats improved the course of illness in people with bipolar disorder.1 In 2001, he published the book The Omega-3 Connection, which was among the first works to bring attention to and support the use of omega-3 fats for depression.
Now, more than a decade later, there has been additional research supporting the importance of omega-3 fats for mental health, including a potentially groundbreaking study presented at the 2014 International Early Psychosis Conference in Tokyo, Japan, which took place in November.2
Inside the Notorious Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre
usan wrings her hands and twitches as she speaks, jerking her head from side to side. She is clearly not well. “I ate washing powder to try and kill myself,” says the nervous woman in her fifties. Her eyes flash wild. “It was all I could find. I wanted to die. I would rather die than go back.”
Susan, whose name has been changed, as have those of all the residents quoted in this article, at their own request, says she was a campaigner for human rights in her country of birth in South East Asia but that she fled after her mother was murdered by those she opposed. That trauma forced her to flee to England – not Britain’s superb welfare system or the lax immigration controls that prompted the mayor of the French town of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, to descibe the UK as an “El Dorado” for immigrants last week.
