4 Psychiatric Patients Die Each Day in NHS Care

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/12/mental-health-patient-safety

Denis Campbell, health correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 12 April 2009


The NHS is today castigated for providing "inadequate" psychiatric help to vulnerable mental health patients, as new figures reveal an average of four deaths a day among those in its care.

Data collected by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) shows that 1,282 people in England died in what it calls "patient safety incidents in mental health settings" in the period 2007-08.

Another 913 patients - more than two a day - suffered what is termed severe harm, or permanent injuries, in such incidents.

The figures include patients who died as a result of self-harming behaviour, including suicide, disruptive or aggressive behaviour, medication safety errors and accidents, although it is not specified how many deaths fell into each category.

Campaigners claimed last night that the high death rates showed that many of the hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people who seek help each year receive a second-class service.

"These figures are shocking. It's a scandal that four people a day are dying while under the care of the NHS, and nearly three a day are ending up seriously harmed. It's an appalling indictment of NHS psychiatric care," said Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman. The party unearthed the statistics by analysing reports sent by every hospital trust in England to the NPSA.

"These deaths are the result of inadequate attention and resources being given to mental health, despite the patients being among the most vulnerable and needy in the whole health system.

"There's discrimination in the system that disadvantages the mentally ill. The NHS is falling down too often in its responsibility to do whatever it can to protect such patients," he added.

Paul Corry of the mental health charity Rethink was equally critical: "These figures are very disturbing and unacceptably high. Almost 1,300 deaths in a year is far too many. The NPSA data tell us that too often NHS care for mental health patients is poor."

The NHS has reduced the number of suicides in psychiatric hospitals in recent years, said Corry, but guidelines intended to help another vulnerable group - mentally ill people who have recently returned home from care, among whom suicides are common - are widely ignored. "Every mental patient who returns home is supposed to be visited within seven days to check on their mental state and see if they are feeling suicidal," he said. "In places where it's done it helps to stop people taking their own lives. But very often it doesn't happen."

The NPSA figures do not specify causes of death, but Corry said the majority were likely to be suicides. Poor treatment of the mentally ill by the NHS also meant that those with underlying physical health problems such as heart disease and breathing difficulties often had their conditions undiagnosed, which sometimes led to death from natural causes, he added.

A recent NPSA report on patient safety incidents during April-September 2008 shows that 627 people died in 64,353 mental health-related patient safety incidents, though it does not state how many of them were being treated as inpatients on psychiatric wards.

The Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust had the largest number of deaths - 57 - during those six months. The Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Trust reported 49 fatalities, while the Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust had 36.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "It would be irresponsible to draw conclusions from this data without knowing the details of each case. But we do know that safety on mental health wards is improving. Suicides have been radically reduced, from 215 in 1997 to under 150 now."

She cited £130m spent in the past two years on acute psychiatric wards to reduce the risk of suicide.