Patients with a mental illness in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are being sent the equivalent of nearly twice around the world to get a bed, according to new research commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
From August 2018 to July 2019, mental health patients were sent approximately 68,000km away from home. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight is 1 of the 7 worst areas in the country for sending people miles away from home to receive care, the research finds.
7 STPs (Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships) in England were identified by independent researchers as having had persistent challenges with inappropriate out of area placements. In some cases, this could mean being sent hundreds of miles away from friends and family for urgent or long-term treatment.
The practice, known as out-of-area placements (OAPs), happens when there isn’t a local hospital bed for the patient to be admitted to. Allowances are made where this is for highly specialist care. The impact on patients and their loved ones can be devastating, causing huge emotional damage and even setting back those patients’ recovery. It can also be challenging for staff.
Hundreds more NHS mental health beds are needed urgently in England to help end the ‘shameful’ practice of sending severely ill patients far from home for treatment, says the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Professor Wendy Burn, RCPsych president, says:
“Cuts in the number of mental health beds have gone too far and patients and their families are suffering as a result.
“It’s clear that some parts of England urgently need more properly funded and staffed beds. Hundreds more are needed.
Article continues below this advertisement “Trusts struggling with dangerously high levels of bed occupancy are being forced to send seriously ill people hundreds of miles away from their homes for care. That must stop.
“Beds are being closed to move resource to the community so that people can be treated close to friends and family and without having to leave their homes. The RCPsych agrees with that principle. But the reality in many areas is that beds have been lost and investment in community services is only now starting.
“As a result, precisely the opposite effect has been achieved with some severely ill patients sent hundreds of miles for care. We calculate that in total patients in England have been forced to travel 550,000 miles in the past year – or 22 times around the world.
“Steps taken so far to tackle this shameful practice have not worked and that’s why we’re calling for more beds – although of course we recognise this is only part of the solution.
“Now, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight must decide how many beds are needed in their area so patients can stop being sent so far away from home.
“The NHS is gearing up for winter pressures in emergency departments and more money is rightly found to alleviate these. In mental health services we have year-round pressures and these need to be addressed now.”
Those with persistent challenges with inappropriate OAPs are:
- Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire
- Devon
- Hampshire and the Isle of Wight
- Lancashire and South Cumbria
- Lincolnshire
- Norfolk and Waveney
- Nottinghamshire
All those cottage hospitals they sold off to private developers would have come in handy.
Should have kept Whitecroft open. Doubt ANY money was saved with ‘care in the community’ far cheaper to house them all together, rather than giving a separate flat, individual care workers, etc.
as usual this is yet another “cap in hand” demand for yet more money for the health service – the real shame should be seated neatly with those that run this cash cow. All they do is dream up more ways of trying to extract more money from the taxpayer, so that they can pay theirselves more.
if there weren’t so many “claiming” to have health issues, just to get state benefits and perhaps if A and E wasn’t stacked full of snowflakes with broken nails, then the health service would easily meet the “real” demand for its services.
The health service is there to help the sick and dying, not for cosmetic surgery, gender re-assignment, liposuction and all the other
things that people should pay for, for themselves.
You are delusional. Maybe you should seek mental health care, although seemingly there isn’t any space. get a grip.
@Trainee Reporter cage…
perhaps if there wasn’t a queue of time wasters and spongers for the Nhs, then the genuine people in need would have access to services in a timely manner.
Blame the timewasters, spongers and self serving leeches at the top of the NHS that pay theirselves vast amounts of public cash for doing very little for the ills of the service.
Az-zahra Aziz, Spot on