located: | United Kingdom |
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editor: | Shira Jeczmien |
After The Guardian released the findings of its latest investigation into the negligent treatment of hundreds of mental health patients on March 5, titles of personal accounts began surfacing. “My son was left to rot at home”, read one article. “She was screaming out for help” headlined another. Parents who have lost their children; partners who have been left alone. The failure of NHS care stands culpable of countless deaths that could have been avoided.
The investigation found that “at least 271 highly vulnerable mental health patients have died over the last six years after failings in NHS care” according to The Guardian, with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s constituting the prime age group affected, with half of the deaths.
As people begin to speak louder about mental health, the momentum to break the parity between mental and physical health support has gained much traction across Britain. Movements, charities and activists have been pushing the dialogue further. With Theresa May’s pledge to “burning injustices” and improving mental health care within the NHS, there seems to be – if only just a glimmer – hope for positive change. Instead, the reality has revealed regression in the crucial support of patients suffering from mental ill health.
Under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, coroners are obliged to issue a notice if they believe a person, a hospital trust, or a government body and council have failed to provide appropriate care or follow the procedures in place. Notices are only issued in cases that are so severe that there is threat to the lives of other patients unless urgent action is taken place. “The Guardian’s analysis of all the notices issued between 2012 and 2017 involving people receiving NHS care for mental health conditions uncovered a total of 706 failings across the 271 deaths. In many cases patients took their own lives.” The investigation read. In conjunction, 137 warnings were issued to GP surgeries, ambulance services, acute hospitals and mental health trusts.
Currently in Britain alone, 16 million people experience a mental illness in their lifetime, with suicide a leading cause of deaths in young people between the ages of 20 to 35 as well as a the highest cause of maternal deaths. While at the same time it was reported that the average wait for effective treatment after initial recognition of symptoms is 10 years.
The shaking foundations of the NHS mental health services is not news, with cuts to funding over the past decade, there is an awareness to the understaffing of wards, practices and surgeries. But what has emerged from the investigation is negligence on a mass scale; beyond shortages of staff (there is currently 6,000 less staff nurses than in 2010, and the numbers of psychiatrists is also falling); the Health Secretary and May’s government are failing hundreds of patients and their families. In the words of Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, “Every one of these deaths is a tragedy, and it must be deeply difficult for families already having to come to terms with losing a loved one to learn that their death could have been prevented.”
Photo: Mental Health UK