6 October 2006
Dear Editor,
The latest Healthcare Commission’s report on community mental health services raises real concerns about the achievement of key mental health standards. Seven years on from the National Service Framework’s publication, only 53 per cent of service users on the Care Programme Approach had received a copy of their care plan and only 51 per cent had a care review in the previous 12 months. Worse, just under half had the telephone number for an out-of-hours crisis service and there had been a decrease in the percentage of people who had received NHS talking therapies.
The Department of Health states these merely failures in small aspects of provision against a general trend of improvement. However, given recent cuts in services our concern is that these may be indicative of wider problems within services. Too often, mental health service users and carers tell us that services exist on paper but are impossible to access in practice.
An independent and transparent national review of progress towards National Service Framework targets based on the experiences of service users and carers, not solely on self reporting by trusts, is long overdue.
Moira Fraser
Head of Policy
Mental Health Foundation
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