Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is facing a probe over whether it will review and phase out a ‘barbaric’ medical procedure used to treat severe depression.
Liberal Democrat Councillor Michael Lilley decried the ‘continued use’ of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) on the Island in a submitted written question to the adult social care, public health and housing needs committee last Thursday (11th September).
ECT involves running electrical currents through the brain to bring about a brief seizure.
Cllr Lilley said ECT is ‘still actively administered’ at Sevenacres, a mental health unit at the St Mary’s Hospital site, with 58 patients in 2024 and 11 so far in 2025.
The representative for Ryde Appley and Elmfield cited recent research described as the ‘largest-ever’ international survey of ECT recipients, led by Dr John Read, an academic at the University of East London (UEL).
UEL has said the study reveals that ‘most patients and their families report little or no benefit from the treatment’, and in many instances say it ‘made things worse’.
Dr Read, based at UEL’s School of Childhood and Social Care, said: “No studies show that ECT has any benefits at all beyond the end of treatment.
“Our findings, from the largest survey ever conducted, indicate that claims that ECT is effective are, at best, unproven and, at worst, misleading.
Article continues below this advertisement “With no robust evidence in four decades, and a high proportion of patients reporting serious long-term harm, it’s time for a fundamental re-evaluation of ECT’s role in mental health care.”
Cllr Lilley said:
“I am shocked that ECT is still being used as extensively on the Isle of Wight. 58 patients may not seem high but within the population of 140,000 and a total of about 2,500 ECT patients across the UK, 58 is considerably high.
“ECT patients are primarily women. This continued use of ECT in my view is barbaric and based on poor medical/psychiatric evidence.”
Independent chair of the adult social care, public health and housing needs committee, Councillor Clare Mosdell, passed Cllr Lilley’s question to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. She told the chamber last week the question was very valid and ‘quite scary’, adding that the trust had been asked to provide a written response.
Dr Alexis Bowers, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Lead for Adult Mental Health Services and ECT at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a recognised evidence-based treatment recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for people with severe mental illness where the patient chooses ECT based on past treatment experience, where other approaches have not worked or when urgent treatment is needed.
“It is given under general anaesthetic following careful assessment by senior clinicians. It is provided to informal consenting patients or to those under the Mental Health Act with appropriate safeguards.
“We recognise there are different views about ECT, but for many people it is a treatment that can be life-saving and enables recovery. Our priority is always to provide our patients safe, effective care in line with national guidance and standards.”
Bit high and mighty of Mr Lilley to demand whether they are going to review it before asking the more diplomatic question of “are they aware of the report?, as they might already be in the process.
Well done to Councillor Lilley for highlighting this barbaric procedure.
Thought it had been outlawed decades ago and it should have been.
The island is a strange place, time for such barbaric
procedures to be ended.
It’s 2025 F.F.S
I thought it had been banned many years ago too… but the report that says it has no long term effect seems to have passed by our Mental Health professionals. As a side note how can someone with a mental health problem give permission for this barbaric treatment, yet if they want to end it all or dance naked in the street, they are considered not able to make THAT decision. None of this makes any sense at all.
I’m shocked too that this old fashioned backward treatment is still going. A family member had this vile and scary treatment many many years ago. I thought it was an outdated procedure, but obviously it isn’t. Sadly our hospital has old fashioned and out of touch values from people tucked away in high positions. They don’t like criticism or change but are able to keep it up without question.
‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ attitude. At the expense of patients and staff.
Need new staff with fair fresh ideas and
decent training.
I thought this barbaric, demeaning, useless & cruel practice had been discontinued years ago. I hope it is stopped without delay.
I understand that this treatment sounds cruel but I think people need to stand back a bit and look at the facts. Barbaric is a very emotive term but one which could equally be used to describe limb amputation but these are still sometimes required in order to save life. ECT is not undertaken lightly, it is administered under general anaesthetic so the patient is entirely unconscious during the procedure. It also requires consent, usually from the patient but sometimes from someone acting for them if they do not have sufficient capacity to make decisions for themself. The value and effectiveness of the treatment is, surely, a clinical assessment made by a medically qualified specialist in the field. Some medecine is brutal and painful but necessary. It is right that there should be careful and thoughtful governance of such practices but decisions about offering such procedures must be made be qualified clinicians based on experience and research not be laymen based on emotive social media debate.
Does anyone remember the film “One flew over the Cookoo’s Nest”? ECT shown an outcome there….
The character Jack Nicholson played had been given a lobotomy which means the frontal lobe of the brain is severed away from the rest of the brain. ECT is practised in the UK and many other countries to good effect. It’s done under anaesthetic, with careful monitoring.