Plan for Racial Equality in Mental Health Services

MENTAL HEALTH

A five-year plan to eliminate racial discrimination in mental health services in the NHS has been launched by health ministers.

The government published its plan last month, at the same time as its response to an inquiry into the case of David ‘Rocky’ Bennett. The 38-year-old Jamaican man died in a psychiatric ward in 1998, after being restrained in a prone position by mental health nurses for more than 25 minutes.

The plan, Delivering Racial Equality in Mental Health Care, includes commitments to reduce the disproportionate rates of compulsory detention of minority ethnic patients; to reduce their fear of mental health services; to prevent deaths due to the use of restraint; and to provide minority ethnic patients with more psychological therapies.

Figures show that young black men are six times more likely than their white counterparts to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act for compulsory treatment, although studies show they are not genetically more susceptible to serious mental illness.

The plan also says that PCTs and other NHS organisations should recruit more from minority ethnic groups to ensure they represent the wider population.

PCTs will also be asked to carry out an ethnic census of mental health patients and compare the results with the ethnic make-up of the local area. They are also expected to produce an action plan to tailor mental health services more closely to local needs.

The government accepted many of the recommendations of the inquiry into Mr Bennett’s death, including better training for mental health nurses in the use of restraint techniques, and a commitment that restraint in the prone position should only be used ‘as a last resort’

Copyright TG Scott & Son Ltd. Feb 2005