Mental health patients treated 200 miles from home due to beds crisis

MENTAL health patients are being treated hundreds of miles from home because of a lack of beds in Greater Manchester.

Scores of desperate patients were sent almost 200 miles from the region to ‘out-of-area’ placements – at a cost of £5.9m over eight months.

Experts have warned that placing vulnerable patients hundreds of miles from loved ones in a time of crisis could carry serious risks.

But the region’s cash-strapped NHS chiefs were forced to send 425 mental health patients with acute needs outside their catchment area last year.

Health bosses insist it is an ‘historic’ problem and placing patients close to home is now a priority.

Alan Hartman, of Manchester Users Network, which supports patients, said: “If your miles away from home you are isolated – it’s terrible.

“We have been saying for years that you need ward day patients who are at hospital in the day and at home at night. There’s evidence that they get better quicker because they get used to the community again.

“If you are moved about you can also lose you legal right to appeal against the section. You can end up being on a section longer.”

NHS Digital date shows 425 mental health patients in the region with acute needs were subject to ‘out-ofarea’ placements from last October to the end of June this year.

In that time 380 placements ended – 85 of which lasted for more than 30 days.

Of those, ten placements were almost 200 miles away, while 25 were between 124 and 185 miles away.

There were 45 out-of-area placements active in Greater Manchester at the end of June.

It cost an average of £600 a day to place an acute mental health patient in a bed outside their local network.

That works out as a bill of £5.9m between October and June.

A simple lack of beds is the main reason for out-of-area placements. Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, a new body set up in January, said it has been working to address the issue since January.

Gill Green, director of nursing and governance, said: “Since taking over on January 1, we have made it a priority to reduce the number of mental health patients being placed in a bed which is not close to their home.

“We fully understand this is distressing to the patient as well as their family and friends who wish to visit them.

“We are confident improvements will soon be evident.”