1 in 20 missing mental health follow-up care
FEWER than one in 20 people discharged from mental health hospitals run by an NHS organisation covering Halton after being admitted in crisis are not getting a follow-up within a week of leaving.
According to figures from mental health charity Mind, in 2015-16 a total of 2,205 patients were discharged from 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which is now called North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
The charity’s figures showed that of these, 2,117 people – or 96% – were followed up within seven days.
It means 88 people at the mental heath trust which covers Runcorn and Widnes were not followed up within a week.
Mind sent Freedom Of Information requests to all 56 mental health trusts in England asking for information about how quickly people are followed up after being discharged from hospital.
A charity spokeswoman said follow-ups – usually a face-toface visit or a phone call – provides continued contact and ensures that the right ongoing support is in place.
Mind also conducted a survey of more than 850 people about their experiences of the process after they left hospital.
It found that those who were not followed up appropriately were twice as likely to attempt suicide and a third more likely to harm themselves compared to respondents who said they were followed up within seven days of being discharged.
The Mind spokeswoman said that findings show that the lack of appropriate follow-up is also putting significant pressure on the NHS as people are not getting the help they need to recover.
Those not followed up within seven days were more than twice as likely to end up in A&E as a result of their mental health within the first week of being discharged.
Data from the NHS shows that on average more than one in 20 people with mental health problems who are discharged from hospital are readmitted within 30 days.
Mind’s director of external relations Sophie Corlett said: “Thousands of people with mental health problems in England and Wales are not getting the appropriate follow-up when they are first discharged from hospital.
“This is not good enough. It is a tragedy that so many people so very recently leaving the care of hospital are losing their lives.
“The Government has put suicide prevention as a key patient safety issue for the NHS as a whole and pledged to reduce suicides by 10% in the next five years. Timelier followup for patients after they leave hospital could help achieve this.
“Whether you’ve been in hospital for days or for months, when you come out you need the right care and support to help you stay well.
“A vital part of this is having someone make early contact with you to make sure you’re ok and getting the ongoing support you need.
“Seven days is simply too long to wait when someone’s recovery is still at risk. We need to see a reduction of the followup time to 48 hours now.”
National Institute For Health And Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines currently state that all patients should be followed up within seven days because people are at high risk of postdischarge suicide in the first week.
Current NICE guidelines recommend follow-up within 48 hours for some patients only.
Mind is calling for the 48 hour timeframe to extend to everyone leaving hospital after a mental health crisis.
Professor Louis Appleby, director of the National Confidential Inquiry Into Suicide And Homicide, said: “People leaving hospital can feel unsupported as they return to the problems that may have led to their admission.
“Those first few days are the time of highest suicide risk – follow up within seven days has helped but we now need to go further.
“This is probably the most important single step a service can take to improve patient safety.”
Gail Briers is a chief nurse and the director of operational clinical services at North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
She said: “We routinely monitor the percentage of service users treated under a Care Programme Approach who ● receive a follow-up from our community mental health teams within seven days of being discharged from our inpatient units.
“This is an important safety measure set by NHS Improvement, which we are required to monitor by our commissioners and against national standards, to ensure the safety of our service users following discharge.
“Exceeding NHS Improvement’s 95% target, our Trust’s compliance rate was 96% during 2015-16 and has remained above target during 2016-17.”