Dr Sarah Hughes, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, spoke to The UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee after a report on mental health cases at A&E reaching crisis levels.
Sky’s health correspondent Ashish Joshi reported that waiting times for these cases have risen, and overnight beds in mental health units are down almost 3,700 in a decade.
Dr Hughes called the report “incredibly important insight into what’s happening,” before adding: “One of our wonderful campaigners waited 87 hours on a stretcher when she was incredibly distressed.
“These are scenes are happening up and down the country, and I’m afraid to say that whilst I’m devastated to see them, I’m not surprised.”
She then said that while “there are all sorts of services” across the UK for mental health, they are “nowhere near the level that we need”.
‘We know what works’
“We are seeing thousands and thousands of people go into A&E every month for very serious mental health challenges, and this can be resolved quite easily by beefing up what’s available in the community,” Dr Hughes said.
“By making sure that community mental health services are resourced so that people are caught far earlier, that we don’t hit crisis, that they’re able to get the support they need well before they get into trouble.
“We know what works: We know that with proper investment that we could avoid this situation.”
The charity boss also said that while new initiatives from the government on services would be welcomed, “fundamentally, without mental health support, we’re not enabling [people] to thrive”.
“In fact,” she said, “we’re putting them into incredibly vulnerable situations day in day out. They are carrying the risk here.
“We know that mental health staff in A&Es are also really struggling. They want to do a good job, and they can’t. They’re not resourced to.”
Plans to tackle spike in cases ‘not ambitious enough’
New Freedom of Information data gathered by the Royal College of Nursing shows that over the last five years, waits of 12 hours or more for a mental health bed have increased by more than 380%.
When asked about whether NHS and government plans will help tackle the sharp rise, Dr Hughes said: “We already know that they don’t and they won’t.
“We are expecting a real-terms cut in terms of the funding around mental health going forward. We are not convinced or persuaded that we’ve got the share of spend that’s right for mental health.
“We’re concerned that the plans for mental health are not ambitious enough. We’re not really persuaded, I think, that the policies surrounding mental health either are going to help reform and so on.
“All of these things that are going on demonstrate a lack of understanding.”
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In response to Ashish Joshi’s report, the Department for Health and Social Care told Sky News: “We know people with mental health issues are not always getting the support or care they deserve and incidents like this are unacceptable.
“We are transforming mental health services – including investing £26m to support people in mental health crisis, hiring more staff, delivering more talking therapies, and getting waiting lists down through our Plan for Change.”
