Over 17 000 serious incidents reported in mental healthcare last year
The UK’s largest mental health charity, Mind, has published previously unseen data laying bare the full scale of the emergency in mental healthcare, with staff reporting 17,340 serious incidents in 12 months.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) figures shows mental healthcare staff across England reported an incident two times every hour in the last year, where people are treated for issues including self-harm, eating disorders and psychosis.
Incidents included:
- injuries to patients that caused likely long term sensory, movement or brain damage, or physically damaged their body
- prolonged physical pain or psychological harm, or shortened life expectancy
- cases of abuse, including those involving the police
- injuries for which the patient needed treatment to prevent them dying.
All of these incidents involved care providers raising concerns with the CQC under their statutory duty under Regulation 18.
Dr Sarah Hughes, Chief Executive of Mind, says: “It is deeply worrying that healthcare staff across the country are so concerned about the situation in mental health settings that they are reporting a serious incident once every half an hour. We knew this was a crisis – now we know the scale of this crisis. People seek mental healthcare to get well, not to endure harm. Families are being let down by a system that’s supposed to protect their loved ones when they are most sick. The consequences can be and have been fatal".
Source: Mind, 10 October 2023