Services fail to reach psychotic patients

Up to half of those people who experienced their first episode of
psychosis 18 months ago have still not received any specialist
help, according to the director of operations at mental health
charity Rethink, writes Katie
Leason.

Andrew Higby told the Community Care Live conference that on 21
November 2001, 100 people would have experienced their first
psychotic episode, but that 50 of them would not have received
specialist assistance to this day.

Of those who did receive help, 35 per cent would have been
turned away, he said, on the basis that they were “not ill
enough”, and 50 per cent would have been subjected to
compulsory treatment as their first experience of care.

In addition, two people would have committed suicide, and
another five to seven are likely to do so in the next three
years.

Higby pointed out that early intervention made moral and common
sense, as “psychosis kills young people”.