Mental Health Care Units are known to be a safety haven for those who are suffering mental issues in their daily lives. However, it seems like there have been few mental health patients who have died under the care of a mental health care unit. In a recent report in England researchers at Inquest have found out that there have been nine mental health patients who passed away under the care of mental health care units in England since 2010 and that mental-health death are under reported.
Alistair Burt, Health Minister have spoken out about the issue on BBC Panorama, stating that he does not know the figure and that he is calling for further investigation on the Inquest research about mental health death. Furthermore, recently only four deaths of mental health in-patients have been acknowledged by the Department of Health.
"Panorama's investigation has unearthed questions about record-keeping and I'm seeking assurances from NHS England that they have the right processes in place for recording any such death and that lessons are learned," Mr. Alistair Burt, the minister for community and social care for England, issued in a statement.
The Department of Health in England also expressed their want to meet with the people behind the research and that they want to resolve the discrepancies on their separate reports. "My fear is there could be more deaths. Neither we nor the Department of Health knows," Inquest director Deborah Coles said.
Inquest's reported nine deaths on their research and they have gathered information about this through their own casework and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. The big problem with the mental health patients is that mentally ill people are normally placed by the National Health Security (NHS) in private psychiatric units and these units are not subject to FOI requests.
This means that the report by Inquest about the nine in-patient deaths could be higher if they have access to records in private psychiatric units. Inquest aims to help the bereaved families of mentally ill in-patients.
