Systemic Failure In Mental Health Care, Report Reveals

Vulnerable mental health patients are being traumatised, sexually assaulted and physically harmed in UK hospitals – and have even managed to escape, the safety watchdog has warned in its first major national investigation.

- REBECCA THOMAS

The report by the Health Services Safety Investigation Branch (HSSIB), launched by former health secretary Steve Barclay after The Independent exposed a series of failings in the sector, warns the government and healthcare leaders that cash-starved “oppressive” mental health hospitals are causing harm to patients.

Inpatient mental health services across England are failing to keep highly vulnerable patients safe and are even retraumatising them, according to the HSSIB.

It highlights a litany of concerns over safety, much of it driven by national shortages of mental health staff, and warns the flagship NHS long-term workforce plan ambitions may be “unattainable”.

Other failings highlighted by the safety watchdog include:

• Short-staffed mental health wards are failing to protect patients from sexual harm as staff also “normalise” sexualised behaviour

• Female patients are still regularly housed in mixed-sex wards despite national rules banning this, as hospitals lack funding to change wards

• Patients are self-harming, subjected to violence and able to escape as hospitals lack the number of staff to prevent this

• Mental health patients are not getting therapeutic care in mental health wards

• “Oppressive” and “grim” hospital buildings are retraumatising patients

The report is the first in a series which are due to be published by the HSSIB over the next year, which will also look at children’s inpatient care. It comes following a series of exposés by The Independent and Sky News over “systemic” failings within a group of private children’s hospitals.