I’m Appalled By The Ways The NHS Fails Mental Health Patients
As a citizen of the British Isles, I love the NHS. I feel tremendous gratitude for it when I hear the horrific tales of neglect due to the lack of insurance in other countries. It is free at the point of access, and all necessary procedures are covered. However, it lets us down in one key area: the NHS fails mental health patients with depressing regularity.
As a long term sufferer of depression, I have received treatment. I’m not sure if I’ve received the right treatment, though. The first port of call is always antidepressants; don’t get me wrong, they have their role to play. After that, I was offered a course of CBT. I don’t want to imply I know it all, but I had researched depression treatments thoroughly when trying to help my parents. I was aware of the principles of CBT, so it did not help much.
I suspect I may need a much longer period of psychotherapy, but it isn’t available. I feel like I need to work through the trauma from my childhood, and I have never succeeded in doing it alone. My only option is to pay for this treatment privately, but money is a factor. It is just one of the ways the NHS fails mental health patients.
Eating Disorders
Between 1.25 and 3.4 million people in the UK are believed to have eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia account for around 40%, and of all mental illnesses, anorexia has the highest death rate. With numbers like these, you’d assume that proper treatment would be a priority. Nope!
At a former workplace, a colleague had a daughter with anorexia. It was serious enough for her to be hospitalised, but sadly, she was not treated at an eating disorder facility or even in an eating disorder ward at a mental hospital. She was treated in a standard mental hospital mixed in with patients with a huge variety of symptoms, some quite frightening. Needless to say, progress was difficult.
Body positivity author Megan Jayne Crabbe listed similar experiences in her book.
Lack Of Dignity
A lack of appropriate facilities is far from the worst problem, though. A report by the medical ombudsman in 2017 identified a catalogue of errors in which the NHS fails mental health patients.
- 1 in 5 mental health patients do not feel safe in NHS care
- Some patients felt they were talked about and not to
- There is a failure to correctly diagnose mental illness
- Patients have taken their lives after being discharged with no care plan in place
- Patients have been assaulted by other patients on wards
- Patients and their families feel ignored and uninformed
- Patients can wait six months or more for an appointment with a mental health professional following an actual suicide attempt
Preventable Deaths
What is worse, there have been many preventable deaths due to lack of care:
- A young man with a host of mental health problems was discharged without suitable support. He died of a drug overdose soon after
- A woman in a psychotic episode had a severe reaction to the medication she was prescribed. Doctors dismissed the physical symptoms she reported and she died
- Erica Henderson was being treated for epilepsy and schizophrenia. She had attempted to commit suicide on several occasions and was still not properly observed. Tragically, she succeeded in taking her own life while in hospital
- An investigation was launched into the deaths of 1500 mental health patients over 20 years in unexplained circumstances in Essex
Reach Out
It’s pretty shocking, isn’t it? Rest assured, my motives in sharing the shocking ways the NHS fails mental health patients are not to upset anyone. It is merely to make everyone in the UK aware that cases can and do slip through the cracks. So, if you suffer from mental health problems, or know someone who does, simply be aware of this.
The NHS is not infallible, particularly when it comes to mental health. So, I beg you, do your research. Learn about mental illness and things you can do to help yourself. If you know someone who is struggling, check on them regularly and offer your support.
Become your own champion or a champion for someone you love. Fight for the treatment you need, and don’t stop until you’re satisfied. The NHS fails mental health patients regularly; please don’t let you or someone you love be one of them.
