People talk about tax evasion but this is ethics evasion
Intense pressure to discharge suicidal patients took toll on staff member
A whistleblower from scotland’s mental health service has revealed how stressed-out staff have been left traumatised.
on Monday the Daily Record told how police were probing a mental health patient’s death amid allegations he was oversedated in a crisis-hit unit.
in addition to Jake Llewellyn’s death, the whistleblower said there were a number of other serious incidents at Forth Valley Royal Hospital where suicidal patients had taken their own lives after being discharged.
They also told how those with addictions and personality disorders were not admitted to wards when they felt suicidal.
Yesterday, rape victim Eilidh McCall told how she had been driven to attempt suicide on more than 40 occasions after being let down by the health board’s mental health service.
Today, an employee of one of the country’s biggest health boards, NHS Lothian, said they had witnessed similar problems within their mental health services.
And they told how the pressure on staff was so bad that it affected their own mental health. The care worker said: “i was pretty triggered by Jake’s story, it is so similar to some stuff i was coming across myself.
“i worked for three years at the intensive home treatment team (iHTT), Edinburgh’s crisis response service.
“it was supposed to make up for the lack of beds. The iHTT was basically going out to see people in their homes. They are generally articulating suicidal ideation, thinking about suicide. They were maybe discharged from wards. Some needed to be on a ward but there weren’t any beds available.
“A lot of the Community Psychiatric Nurses referred to it as a dumping ground for those with ‘raging PDs’ (personality disorders). The substance misuse element was treated the same way.
“it is a caustic environment. i would sit in assessments and the meeting was about how can we not take this person on. A substance misuse issue was a good way of not taking someone on, it was a case of ‘go home and sleep it off’. People talk about tax evasion but this is ethics evasion.”
The whistleblower added: “There was also intense pressure to discharge. There was heavy criticism while i was there of a patient who killed herself three days after discharge.”
The care worker ended up off with work-related stress. They said: “i raised the issue of how many discharge visits i had been given and that i was seeing on average three suicidal people a day – about threequarters of the time on my own as a non-registered nurse – and i wasn’t even given suicide prevention training.
“i had asked for it for almost three years but i was told there wasn’t a trainer on site.
“i was getting more and more discharge visits with acutely unwell people. i was doing the work of a CPN.
“They were asking me to discharge patients but i was not trained for that.”
The care worker returned to work in another area of the NHS after the pandemic but the pressure was so great they relapsed and have not worked since 2021.
Janis Butler, human resources and organisational development boss at NHS Lothian, said: “We promote an open, honest and responsible culture where staff are encouraged and supported to speak up, especially about patient safety, working conditions or wrongdoing.
“Where whistleblowing concerns are raised, we investigate in line with the national whistleblowing standards.”
there was heavy criticism of a patient who killed herself three days after discharge care worker