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.
YOUNG people in Hull are falling victim to the Government’s failure to provide sufficient in-patient mental health services in Hull, says MP Alan Johnson.
Young people’s mental health services across the UK are in dire straits.
A recent report by the Royal College of Nursing showed that government spending cuts have led to the loss of more than 3,300 mental health posts over the last four years and 1,500 fewer beds than in 2010.
A report by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) revealed worrying increases in the number of young people being treated in adult psychiatric wards.
All the self-care in the world won’t prevent burnout unless mental health workers stop trying to be superhuman and accept their vulnerabilities, an Australian researcher told Community Care.
Marieke Ledingham, a lecturer in counselling at the University of Notre-Dame, Australia, conducted research with 55 mental health workers to find out why they were suffering burnout in such large numbers, despite understanding its causes.
A Tory councillor has provoked a Twitter backlash after claiming that food banks are only visited by “those with drug, alcohol and mental health problems”.
Mark Winn, who is also a civil servant with the Ministry of Defence and until recently held an appointment on Buckinghamshire council’s health scrutiny committee, hit out at what he called “the BBC doing Labour’s bidding” after watching an episode of Casualty on Saturday night.
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.
Those of us who have been campaigning over the last few years to save public services from government cuts and austerity have been known to say, only half jokingly, that when the Tories are done, there will be “nothing left”. But this isn’t true. Tory austerity measures are a full on ideological assault. Their economic policy masks a concerted attempt to demonise the poorest and encourage people to think that the unemployed, the ill, the disabled, immigrants, asylum seekers and the old aren’t “deserving”. Thus the future is not one without public services. It is one where minimal services are delivered, by privatised corporations, to those who are deemed worthy.
