Rise in emergency mental health hospital admissions

Emergency mental health admissions to hospitals rise for first time in five years but level of planned admissions continues to fall, NHS data shows

Picture credit: didbygraham (Flickr)

Emergency admissions to hospital for patients in need of psychiatric care rose for the first time in five years in 2012/13, official figures released today show. Below I’ve pulled out some of the key trends from the data. Overall mental health admissions, including planned admissions, have seen a downward trend over the past five years but rising numbers of emergency admissions for children have been made during the same period. The statistics include admissions to all NHS hospitals (not just specialist mental health units) and care at private services that was paid for by the NHS.

A series of reports, including a joint investigation by Community Care and BBC News, have raised concerns that frontline staff are struggling to secure voluntary admissions to hospital for patients amid pressures on NHS mental health beds.

 

Trends in psychiatric hospital admissions

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Trends in psychiatric hospital admissions

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One Response to Rise in emergency mental health hospital admissions

  1. Alan November 6, 2013 at 1:07 pm #

    As a carer of someone diagnosed with a mental well-being issue this does not come as a shock or surprise to me for my experience shows that all mental health care from GP to planned admission needs a drastic overhaul. Too much reliance is placed on IAPT where I know some have found the assessment frightening so have not engaged. For some reason CPN’s are seen as the ideal counsellor despite counsellors having considerably more specialised training. One GP did not know the difference between NLP and DBT but was referring to both. Crisis teams that just signpost and do not give any direct support. CAMHS who ignore patient and family history and say there is nothing wrong despite other health professionals recognising there was. Community Mental Health Clinics being sited where there is no community, usually business parks. This has also been accompanied by the destruction of many occupational therapy services. Many of the positive changes that had been made over the last several decades have in more recent years been ignored and in some areas the service has regressed. TICKING BOXES NEEDS TO BE ABOLISHED and the focus must go to being person centred.
    A Psychologist I listened to didn’t properly understand Dialectic Behaviour Therapy despite the fact she was regularly practicing it.