BEH Mental Health Trust performance: over reliance on B and B and the private sector
Andrew Dismore, Labour London Assembly member and parliamentary candidate for Hendon today expressed his concern over figures revealed in the Health Service Journal concerning Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust.
Mr Dismore said:
“The use of private providers of mental health services and the use of bed and breakfast accommodation is deeply worrying. It shows the inadequacy of mental health care within the NHS with almost £1million spent in the private sector to plug the gaps.
“Reliance of bed and beakfast accommodation is just as bad. This shows not just the inadequacy of discharge arrangements as it is clearly far from ideal for recent mental health in patients to be put in unsecure B and B instead of settled accommodation, as this risk of relapse in such conditions is a very real one. This also imposes strains on the budget which would otherwise be available to treat patients.
“Barnet’s Conservative MPs and Conservative Coucil have had nothing to say about this appalling situation which has developed on their watch.
“So much for the Conservative led Coalition Government’s pledge that the NHS was safe in their hands. It is clear that mental health services are the Cinderella service of the NHS and money is being thrown down the drain through inadequate in house resources which has make things worse.”
Notes
Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust saw the cost of moving discharged patients into B&Bs shoot up from £46,000 in 2012-13 to £264,000 in the 10 months to January this year.
Use of B&Bs, which the trust admits was “not ideal for patients”, was revealed in a Freedom of Information response which also shows an 11-fold hike in the trust’s bill for placing patients with private providers.
Budget shot up from £89,000 in 2012 to almost £1m in the first ten months of 2013-14, with each bed costing the trust around £800 a night.
The trust’s escalating use of B&B and private provider accommodation comes after it reduced inpatients beds by around a third over the past five years.
