Patient sent 250 miles from home

The figures were provided to the BMA by trusts and GP-led clinical commissioning groups (CCG) in response to Freedom of Information requests.

Sean Rayner, district director of the Trust, said: “A small number of our PICU patients have needed to be cared for on a gender specific ward, which the trust does not provide.

“This is a highly specialist provision and can lead to the patient needing to travel a greater distance to receive this clinically required care.”

Dr Andrew Molodynski, NHS consultant psychiatrist and mental health policy lead of the BMA’s consultants committee, described the situation as an ‘endemic.’

Adding that “patients are being routinely failed by a system at breaking point”, he said: “Being sent long distances for treatment has an impact on patients’ care and recovery.

“There have been tragic cases where coroners have ruled that the difficulties families have visiting a relative receiving care, as well as poor communication between hospitals in other regions and local mental health services, contributed to deaths.”

The BMA is calling for parity of esteem, a principle by which mental health must be given equal priority to physical health.

Dr Molodynski said: “It is easier to slash NHS mental health beds to keep waiting lists down in A&E and for routine operations than to address the scale of the problem, and the budget cuts just keep on coming.

“We would never tolerate a situation in which a stroke victim in Somerset had to travel to the Highlands for treatment, and yet this is the reality for some mental health patients.”

The figures quoted by the BMA include individuals who need a service that the Trust is not commissioned for, such as locked rehabilitation and long term care for older adults.