Fri 9th May 2014
UK Health
Radio Medical News Update
Mental
Health Bed Crisis
A report was published recently that
highlighted the lack of beds that is forcing mental health patients in England
to seek treatment in other NHS facilities some times hundreds of miles away.
The number of patients travelling to seek
emergency treatment has more than doubled in two years - from one thousand
three hundred people in 2011-12 to just over three thousand in the period
2013-14.
Earlier this year one patient was even admitted to
a deaf unit, as no beds were available for admission anywhere in the country.
Health minister Norman Lamb said out-of-area
treatment was always a "last resort".
The care and support minister added that it
was "unacceptable" for patients to have to travel "hundreds of
miles" for treatment and said he was determined to drive up standards of
care within the NHS.
Leading charities have called the situation
scandalous and a disgrace. One mental health trust spent almost three hundred
and fifty thousand pounds last year paying for patients to be put up in
bed-and-breakfast accommodation in order to free much-needed beds in medical
facilities.
Mental health trusts have suffered cuts of
more than one thousand seven hundred beds in the past two years. The desperate situation was discovered after
a joint investigation of BBC News and the online journal Community Care looked
into the effect the cuts were having on mental health services across the
UK.
Data from 30 of England's 58 mental health trusts has shown that
overall the number of patients sent out of area has more than doubled between
2011-12 and 2013-14.
The increase comes despite the number of
patients being admitted to hospital for mental health problems falling slightly
in the period between 2012-13.
Amanda Thomas
UK Health Radio Medical News
On the Hour
sponsored by 1-stop-health-shop.com
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