Patients feel “unsafe” on mental health wards

Less than half of patients on mental health wards in England feel safe and only a third said they were as involved as they wanted to be in their treatment, according to a survey published by the Care Quality Commission today.

Just 45% of the 7,500 patients interviewed said they always felt safe on their ward and 16% said they didn’t feel safe at all. 30% of those interviewed said they felt unfairly treated, either because of their race, gender, age, disability or “another reason”.

The survey also showed that the NHS’s commitment to providing more activities for patients was not being enforced as 54% of interviewees said there was not enough to do during the weekends and 34% said there wasn’t enough to do during the week. Only 29% (of the 52% that wanted them) said they had received appropriate access to talking therapies.

Almost half of the interviewees said they had never had the side effects of their prescription drugs explained to them in an understandable way.

Peter Beresford, chair of the user-led organisation Shaping Our Lives and former mental health service user, said: “Sadly the terrifying truth is that this survey only confirms what service users have been saying for years and years. It’s great that it has been published because finally we have inescapable evidence that nothing has improved fundamentally.

"The lack of correlation between what service users need, as shown in the survey, and the government’s forthcoming New Horizons strategy is depressing. The strategy bears no relation to the scale of inadequacy across the system and with spending cuts being a huge necessity and priority through government, how is the relatively small mental health sector going to suffer?”

A former resident on psychiatric wards, who did not want to be named, said: “My worst nightmare would be to have to go back in because I don’t think the system has changed.

"In the 20 years I have been receiving drugs from the NHS, both in and out of wards, I have never received information on the side effects of them. It terrifies me that people now still don’t know what what effect their drugs will have on them in the long-term.”

Care Services minister Phil Hope said: “It's important to remember that nearly half of the people who responded to this survey had been detained under the mental health act and had severe mental health problems, which may have affected how safe they felt. It is vital they get the care, support and treatment they need.

"People deserve the best possible care when they reach a crisis moment in their lives and we are working to improve services further. We will make sure that the experiences people have shared in this report feed into New Horizons, our new vision for mental health.”

The New Horizons strategy, which will outline a plan for more personalised care, will be launched later in the year.

*To view the inpatient service users survey 2009 visit http://www.cqc.org.uk/PatientSurveyMentalHealth2009