MHAC condemns 'unacceptable' services

Mental Health Nursing,  Sep 1999  

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Mental Health Act commissioners have found wide variations in the quality of psychiatric care for detained patients

Around a third of patients in acute psychiatric units are detained under the Mental Health Act but in some areas the proportion tops 90 per cent, according to a recent report from the Mental Health Act Commission.

Commissioners found that many detained patients agreed to enter hospital voluntarily and were subsequently held according to the provisions of the Mental Health Act. Their report says that while this may reflect a desire by clinicians to avoid compulsion at the point of admission and to treat patients in the least restrictive circumstances possible, it may also suggest that patients are wanting to leave hospital because they do not like the conditions they find there.

The Commission's main responsibility is to review the operation of the 1983 Act as it relates to detained patients, and its eighth biennial report identifies a number of key policy and practice issues.

It highlights the high pressure on psychiatric beds which it says causes 'serious problems' for staff and patients. Commissioners also found there was `room for improvement' in the continuity of care between hospital and community, with the format for recording care plans in some areas 'badly designed and the content unclear'.

Gordon Lake, acting chair of the MHAC, said it was a 'fundamental principle' that those subject to compulsory treatment should be assured an appropriate standard of care. `The Commission has visited many services that more than adequately achieve these objectives, but a significant number do not and some fail to provide even an acceptable level of service.'

Copyright Community Psychiatric Nurses Association Sep 1999
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