Yet again, if we’re to believe the rumours, there is a threat hanging over the St Andrew’s Ward in Wells. Instinctively you would say that it mustn’t close and that was my initial reaction too. However, I’ve been doing a lot of work on mental healthcare provision in our part of Somerset and I’m not absolutely sure that the current laydown really meets our needs.
The mental healthcare system in our county has become too focused on the provision of acute mental health services with a relatively high number of beds for those who are in crisis and requiring hospital admission. So too are there lots of amazing charities doing some great work with those living with more low level mental health conditions. However, we lack enough of the stuff in the middle that helps to stop people from reaching crisis in the first place and that helps people recover more quickly when released from hospital.
The outgoing Chief Executive of the Somerset Partnership Trust speaks effusively about non-acute accommodation – ‘crisis houses’ – which give patients a safe, non-clinical environment when they are at risk of having a crisis. Very often, the ability to escape to a facility like this means that an acute mental health crisis is avoided which is obviously a better outcome for the patient but also a cheaper outcome for the NHS. Similarly patients who have been in a mental health hospital are often sent straight home which can cause anxiety that hampers their recovery.
We don’t want to end up with less mental health provision in our part of the county and I will vigorously oppose any plans that would make that so. However we should open our minds to the idea that there might be a better way of doing this that delivers better health outcomes for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
