Rise in mentally ill patients forced into exile from home

OVER 500 patients with serious mental health problems are being forced to stay in NHS facilities more than 60 miles from home, data has revealed.

That is more than double the number three years ago, and comes amid a bed shortage and staffing crisis.

The data also showed that the amount of time mental health patients spend away from home is rising, with three times as many as December 2016 projected to spend all this month in an “out-of-area placement”. Approximately nine out of 10 such placements – defined as outside the local network of services – are deemed inappropriate by the NHS, which spends around £2.5 million a week funding them.

More than 50 mental health patients are predicted to spend Christmas nearly 200 miles from home.

Thomas Stephens, health policy analyst at Incisive Health, which conducted the research, said: “For three Christmases in a row, bed shortages and staffing pressures have seen a steady rise in out-of-area placements.

“If current trends continue, this Christmas will be the worst on record.”

The Conservative manifesto promised extra funding to recruit mental- health staff, as well as a commitment to “treat mental health with the same urgency as physical health”.

Improving mental health also forms a major plank of the NHS’S own longterm plan, published last January.

Mr Stephens added: “Addressing out-of-area placements and avoiding repetition of previous winters will be a key test for the new Government.”

In December 2016, there were 250 active out-of-area placements 100km (62 miles) from patients’ local networks. If increasing trends continue, the number of patients will exceed 520 this December – more than double what it was three years ago.

The analysis predicted that if current trends continue, over 1,350 out-of-area placements could be active this December, up from 1,200 in December 2018 and 961 in December 2016.

It also revealed that the number of patients in out-of-area facilities for 31 days or more is projected to rise from 75 in 2016 to 220 spending this entire month away from home.

The previous government set a goal to eliminate inappropriate out-of-area placements for adults in acute inpatient care by 2020/21.