A ‘CRIPPLING’ lack of beds for mental health patients has reached such a crisis point that patients are being sent home, told to camp on a sofa on a ward, sent hundreds of miles to be seen or even sectioned in order to secure necessary care, a shocking survey revealed yesterday.
The survey of junior doctors was carried out by the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Psychiatric Trainees’ Committee (PTC).
The Royal College said: ‘Some 3,504 trainees were contacted across the UK. Of the 576 trainees that responded: 70% said they had experienced difficulty finding an appropriate bed for a patient at least once. In child and adolescent services (CAMHS) that figure was 83%.
‘80% had sent a patient outside the local area for a bed, 15% doing this more than monthly. 37% had sent a patient at least 100 miles outside their local area. Of those working in CAMHS, 22% had been forced to send a child 200 miles away from their families.
‘37% said a colleague’s decision to detain a patient under the Mental Health Act had been influenced by the fact that doing so might make the provision of a bed more likely, and 18% said their own decisions had been influenced in such a way.
‘24% reported that a bed manager had told them that unless their patient had been sectioned they would not get a bed. 20% have admitted a patient to a bed belonging to a patient who has been sent home on a period of trial leave.
‘Three out of ten had seen a patient admitted to a ward without a bed – presumably leaving them to camp on a sofa in a communal room. 28% have sent a critically unwell patient home because no bed could be found.’
Dr Alex Langford, a trainee psychiatrist, said: ‘The survey shows just how pervasively dangerous the disparity between resourcing in mental health and other medical specialities is.’
Meanwhile the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) warned of a ‘postcode lottery’ where, particularly in deprived areas, it is really hard to get an appointment with your GP. The RCGP said that figures reveal ‘shocking discrepancies in the number of GPs employed locally’.
In North, East and West Devon there are over 60 full time equivalent (FTE) GPs per 100,000 patients, whereas in Slough the equivalent number are just 22.
Dr Maureen Baker, Chair of the RCGP, said: ‘Every single patient should be able to see their GP when they are in need of medical assistance, regardless of where they live.’
She added: ‘It is doubly unacceptable that those patients affected tend to be those who live in deprived parts of the country. There is now a desperate shortage of GPs in many parts of the country, leaving the service teetering on the brink of collapse.’
BMA member Anna Athow, said: ‘The fact is that the government is imploding the NHS with £20bn of McKinsey QIPP cuts. There are not the acute beds for mental health patients when they need them, putting their lives at risk.
‘There is a shortage of at least 10,000 GPs due to cuts in funding and GP practices are being rendered bankrupt. We cannot stand by and let this happen. Action needs to be organised to reverse these closures.
‘The march by GPs in Tower Hamlets this Thursday at 14.30 from Thomas More St should be supported. Wider national action by the health unions, in collaboration with the whole public sector, is urgently needed to stop the devastation and remove this government.’
Thursday’s march ends with a rally at Kingsley Hall, Bromley by Bow, at 6pm.
