Mental Health in the media
May 2024
The bulk of NHS mental health hospital care has been privatised and Cygnet is a major player in the business. This is far from the first time it has been found taking the money for poor services.
April 2024
Children aged 16 to 17 are entering care in greater numbers than any other age group, often with complex needs, and experts say many councils in England now have nowhere to put them. They are increasingly resorting to budget hotels, with no adult support, as a way of cutting costs and keeping teenagers off the streets.
Thirty organisations, including leading mental health charities and bereaved families’ organisations, have called on the UK Covid-19 Inquiry to focus on the mental health effects of the pandemic.In an open letter published on 10 April the charity Mind questioned why the inquiry had decided not to prioritise mental health in its third module, which is looking at the government’s response to covid-19, and the impact of the pandemic on healthcare systems, patients, and health staff. Public hearings for this module are due to start in September.
https://www.channel4.com/news/connor-sparrowhawk-neglect-at-nhs-unit-contributed-to-death
Connor Sparrowhawk: neglect at NHS unit contributed to death. A teenager with learning disabilities and epilepsy who drowned in a bath at an NHS unit had been neglected, an inquest jury has ruled.
Mental health services breaking down under pressure
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-mental-health-deaths-leak-b2526944.html
Patients ‘begging’ for help as leak reveals thousands die under community mental health services Exclusive: NHS figures leaked by whistleblower suggest more than 15,000 patients died in care of community mental health services in just one year – with desperate families forced to ‘beg’ for treatment from overstretched medical teams
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‘Work is good for mental health’: Sunak bats off criticism as he seeks to end ‘sick note culture’
Rishi Sunak pledges to remove benefits for people not taking jobs after 12 months. The prime minister announces a raft of reforms to the welfare system as he insists it “must change”. But Labour lays the blame at the government’s handling of the NHS, leaving people “locked out” of work.
UK government can no longer bury its head in the sand on mental health – Mind reacts to Centre for Mental Health report
Mind has reacted to the Centre for Mental Health’s latest report showing the social and economic costs of mental health are now £300 billion, up from £119 billion in 2020 and £77 billion in 2003.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-68785590
A public inquiry into the deaths of mental health patients in Essex has been expanded. Investigators were initially due to examine cases dated between 2000 and 2020, but deaths up until 31 December last year will now be included. Health and Social Care Secretary Victoria Atkins said “we will ensure lessons are learned”. The government published the inquiry’s “terms of reference” on Wednesday. The Lampard Inquiry is examining deaths of inpatients being cared for by the NHS in the county, including by the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) which was set up in 2017.
I’ve fallen in love with a metaphor that gives me a balm for some of this. Writer Charles Foster says that true sceptical science embraces mystery. It is, he says, prismatic. “It takes a prism to show that white light is anything but white: that it’s composed of many colours.” If we’re to overcome our mental health crisis, we need to think prismatically. We need to resist simplifications and be inspired by the certainty that we are missing some richer shades of complexity on the side of the prism we can’t see.
The Freedom to Die by Michael Shellenberger.
A new book sheds light on our monstrous treatment of the mentally ill.
March 2024
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-nurse-mental-health-care-b2518096.html
A senior mental health nurse suffered “degrading and humiliating” treatment while she languished for 10 days on an unsuitable NHS ward during a mental health crisis, The Independent has been told. Rachel Luby, 36, was admitted to Basildon Hospital A&E in Essex on 5 January this year after attempting to take an overdose of over-the-counter medicine following a traumatic assault. This, she claimed, was the start of weeks of horrific care she endured while waiting for a mental health bed. It culminated in her being restrained and forced into a caged van “like an animal”.
Israel Lobbyists Tried to Cancel an Event on Mental Health and Palestine
Psychoanalysis has a problem with Palestine. So the Freud Museum’s decision to let an anti-Zionist event go ahead – despite threats to its reputation – is important.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/31/doctor-nhs-psychiatric-care-brother-death
A consultant neurologist whose brother died after a series of failures by an NHS mental health trust has warned that there will be more avoidable deaths without fundamental reform of psychiatric care. Dr Katie Sidle’s concerns about the refusal of Norfolk and Suffolk foundation trust (NSFT) to give her brother Christopher, who was psychotic, a crisis admission were repeatedly ignored in the days and weeks before his death last July, a coroner found this month.
Mental illness costs England £300bn a year, equivalent to nearly double its NHS budget, according to research. Researchers for the Centre for Mental Health thinktank analysed the economic, health and care impact of mental ill health, as well as human costs from reduced quality of life and wellbeing. The report, commissioned by the NHS Confederation’s mental health network, calculated that in 2022, mental illness cost £130bn in human costs, £110bn in economic costs and £60bn in health and care costs.
“To add material insult to injury for those of us who experience mental health problems, in the same interview, the minister unveiled a new and dangerous plan to push 150,000 people with “mild” conditions back into work. It’s really very good for our wellbeing, he argued.”
While I’m grateful for today’s much more open approach to mental health, there is a danger that this has gone too far.
There is a real risk now that we are labelling the normal ups and downs of human life as medical conditions which then actually serve to hold people back and, ultimately, drive up the benefit bill …
If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94% of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-68607551
A campaigner in Norfolk says the “deaths crisis” at the county’s mental health trust is getting worse. Bereaved relatives met the mental health minister, Maria Caulfield, to discuss failings at the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT).
According to official data published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), at least 20,000 incapacity benefit claims are for mental health problems – making up more than two-thirds of the total. (14/3/24)
People with serious mental health needs are also a major revenue stream for the companies variously owned by private equity funds and US healthcare corporations, which operate hundreds of inpatient mental health facilities in the UK.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/self-harm-incidents-more-double-9164586
Prison monitors have asked the Government to consider treating women prisoners with complex mental health needs in secure hospitals rather than in prisons after a damning report into a women’s prison near Bristol. (14/3/24)
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk-second-most-miserable-country-in-the-world
The UK landed 70th out of 71 for overall mental wellbeing, earning an average score of 49, classifying the UK as enduring – comparatively low compared to the average global score of 65.
The report found that UK mental wellbeing levels in 2023 had not recovered from pre-pandemic levels, according to researchers at the US-based Sapien Labs think tank.
35 per cent of respondents in the UK said they were struggling with their wellbeing.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/08/matthew-caseby-priory-healthcare-group-fined
The Priory healthcare group has been fined more than £650,000 over the death of a 23-year-old patient who was hit by a train after absconding from a mental health hospital.
Matthew Caseby, a personal trainer, was able to leave Birmingham’s Priory hospital Woodbourne by scaling a wall after being “inappropriately unattended” for several minutes in September 2020, an inquest jury ruled in 2022.
February 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68399392
According to the report, young people now have the poorest mental health of any age group – a reversal from two decades ago when they had the lowest incidence of common mental disorders.
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/society-s-failings-and-the-nhs-s-struggle-to-cope
‘When we (society) make people mentally unwell, we do not have the staffing, funding or physical space to enable them to become well again.’
“It’s broken”
Doctors’ experiences on the frontline of a failing mental healthcare system. 23/2/2024
The BMA has carried out in-depth interviews with doctors across the mental health system, including those working in psychiatry, general practice, emergency medicine, and public health. We wanted to explore their experiences of providing mental healthcare, including what helps and hinders them in providing good care to patients, how things have changed in the time they have worked in the NHS, and their thoughts on how the challenges identified are impacting on patient care and experience. Interviews with doctors were supplemented by discussions with key stakeholders, including patients and charities.
The interviewees characterised the state of the failing healthcare system that we hear about daily from our wider membership. Doctors told us that mental healthcare is under huge pressure and they are unable to provide the care that patients need and that they want to provide.
Good mental health is essential to a functioning society. Mental illness carries a huge cost to individuals, society, and the health and social care system. Without the appropriate treatment or support, mental illness can lead to lost productivity and the need for informal care; mental ill health has been estimated to cost around £118 billion annually to the UK economy, and nearly £101 billion in England alone, equivalent to roughly 5% of the UK’s GDP. Mental health problems and poor mental health can also influence all aspects of a person’s life and relationships, often causing huge anguish to individuals, families, and communities.
The mental health workforce has become less experienced, while roles have expanded unevenly across the sector, research has revealed. 21/2/24
Mon 19 Feb 7.19pm • ITV News has filmed inside a secure psychiatric hospital, as the government faces calls to do more to fund struggling mental health services.
‘Love is our first medicine’: treating mental health in Cameroon’s unique refuge Among the homeless people of Yaoundé, many are mentally ill and have been rejected by their families. Le Village de L’amour offers them therapy – and hope
The number of children referred to emergency mental healthcare in England has soared by more than 50% in three years, according to data laying bare the impact of lengthy waiting lists for regular NHS treatment.
More than 24,000 children and young people with mental health problems are waiting nearly two years to be seen by community mental health services, an analysis of data by the publication HSJ has found.
Instead of being an isolated exception, research suggests that such privacy violations are too common within the vast industry of mental health apps, which includes virtual therapy services, mood trackers, mental fitness coaches, digitised forms of cognitive behavioural therapy and chatbots.
Mental Health Action 
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