The urgent need to make NHS mental health care safer

NHS mental health care has always existed in the shadow of physical care in terms of funding and health policy priority. Many in the past have termed it the ‘Cinderella’ part of the NHS. This neglect has been chronicled in numerous reports over the years, pointing to many problems such as poor patient safety, abuses of patient rights, poor complaint handling, unnecessary restrictive care regimens, poor patient–professional communication and poor patient satisfaction.

The same problems are repeated year after year and this is an acute cause for concern. These problems are compounded by the fact that we are dealing with a section of the population that is the most vulnerable to abuse and needs the highest level of protection. We are also dealing with a large-scale problem with one in four adults experiencing at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any given year:

‘Mental health problems represent the largest single cause of disability in the UK. The cost to the economy is estimated at £105 billion a year—roughly the cost of the entire NHS.’