According to campaigners from charity group ‘Mind’, patients with urgent mental health conditions are struggling to get emergency treatment in England and Wales.
According to the report, patients could experience long waits and a poor quality of care. Photo: Michelle Eliz
The group published a review looking into the quality of service given to mental health patients.
The report stated that services were either too slow or not available.
“People experiencing mental health emergencies are likely to face long waits, poor quality care and in some cases are unable to access help at all.” Said Mind’s chief executive Paul Farmer.
“People told us what they wanted most in crisis was not complicated, it was to simply be able to get treatment when they needed it, along with therapeutic hospital environments, personal safety, someone to talk to and something to do.
“The sheer simplicity of what is missing shows that there is some way to go before all mental health services are delivering on the fundamentals of good care for people in mental distress.”
Mind carried out its review from autumn 2010 to summer 2011 and interviewed 400 patients and staff.
Although the report said that there were examples of good care, it concluded by stating that problems were likely to get worse as the NHS attempted to make savings.
Tom Chapman
