DHB fails to end use of seclusion

MORE than 200 people have been placed in seclusion by Southern mental health services in the past three years, despite calls for the practice to be done away with by 2020.

Figures released by the Southern District Health Board (SDHB) showed that 223 mental health patients were placed in seclusion — defined as a room from which the sole patient is unable to exit — over the past three years, across the range of inpatient mental health services.

In 2018, a report by the Health Quality and Safety Commission said the practice had negative outcomes for both patients and mental health staff and proactive measures should be taken to eliminate it.

SDHB chief executive Chris Fleming said the board was actively involved in the commission’s ‘‘project zero seclusion’’ work but had not reached that goal as yet.

‘‘Despite a great deal of work across both community and inpatient teams the number of people requiring seclusion and the number of times seclusion has been used have proved very difficult to reduce,’’ he said.

‘‘However, the inpatient teams have managed to reduce the length of time people spend in seclusion by nearly 50%.’’

Earlier this month, a report commissioned by the Human Rights Commission found seclusion and restraint were used too often, for too long, and often without a convincing justification.

The report, by Oxford University academic Sharon Shalev, said while there was a commendable commitment to ending the use of seclusion in mental health facilities, some institutions had recorded an increase in use of the practice, and much more work needed to be done to establish how extensive use of seclusion was.

‘‘Despite the stated intentions and best efforts of many individuals and bodies, and funding to facilitate efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of seclusion in mental health, the overall picture from data and submissions provided to this review was one of persisting use, disproportionately with Maori and Pacific peoples service users.’’

Mr Fleming said despite the challenges the SDHB had had so far in cutting the number of patients placed in seclusion, he believed the organisation could do better.

‘‘We do think the goal of zero seclusion is achievable and we plan to continue working on alternative strategies,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, the SDHB has also released data about the patients who had been in the care of its mental health team for the longest time.

One Dunedin patient had been in care for seven and ahalf years, followed by another who had been in a mental health facility for nearly seven years.

Three others had been in Dunedin units for five, three and threequarter, and two and ahalf years respectively.

Patients in Southland facilities averaged much shorter stays, the longest resident patient there having been in care for six months.