Human rights failure of mental healthcare

Groups say mental health services are under funded

Britain's mental health services are failing to meet basic human rights standards, doctors have declared.

The state of mental healthcare was severely criticised at the Royal College of Psychiatrists annual meeting in Edinburgh on Wednesday.

Doctors said there were not enough hospital beds and people were sectioned unnecessarily in cities across the UK.

Professor Sir David Goldberg, a consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, said standards fell short of the United Nation's principles of human rights.

The UN principles state that everyone should have the right to the "best available mental health care".

Prof Goldberg said sectioning patients in mental hospitals happened routinely in many cities.

This, he said, was because the health service offered no alternative and meant that many beds for "disruptive and dangerous" patients were unavailable.

Prof Goldberg added that junior doctors and nurses were often blamed when things go wrong in mental hospitals.

"We have come to accept a system where blame is consistently devolved downwards, so that the most junior doctors and nurses are held responsible for alleged 'errors'.

The mistaken health policies of health ministers, and the wrong decisions of health authorities and managers are somehow excused of all blame

Prof Sir David Goldberg, Institute of Psychiatry

"But the mistaken health policies of health ministers, and the wrong decisions of health authorities and managers are somehow excused of all blame."

He said nurses and junior doctors would be able to make more "humane" decision if there were alternatives to sectioning.

Prof Goldberg called for extra funding to be made available to help the mentally ill and to ensure hospitals always had beds available.

A spokeswoman for the mental health charity Mind welcomed Prof Goldberg's comments.

"We've been saying this for years. It does not just apply to in-patient services but also to those for out-patients, including care in the community.

"Mental health services have been under-resourced for years."

Those views were echoed by the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. Its chief executive Cliff Prior said: "Mental health services have been given too low a priority for decades."

He called for extra money to be made available to improve services.

"The government has put exciting new mental health strategies in place.

"These need to be properly funded if they are to be translated into service improvements on the ground."