Crisis centres, retreats and "sanctuaries" should replace psychiatric hospitals, report urges

December 12, 2005
by Angela Hussain

Crisis centres, retreats and therapeutic “sanctuaries" with private ensuite rooms should replace psychiatric hospitals, a report by a mental heath charity has urged.

People in a mental health crisis and carers should also be able to drop into new community health centres at any time of the day and night to access help.

Such services should from the core infrastructure of a therapeutic non-hospital-based mental health system for the rest of this century, the Rethink report states.

The report, entitled Future Perfect, was produced after the charity had discussions with focus groups consisting of service users and carers.

A Rethink 2003 report, entitled Just One Per Cent found people’s worst experiences of mental health services were during in-patient care. Earlier this year the Healthcare Commission was critical of psychiatric wards. And in September 2004, a report by the mental health charity Mind found 51 per cent of psychiatric inpatients reported being verbally or physically threatened during their stay.

The focus groups were asked to envisage a mental health service without psychiatric hospitals.

Future Perfect states that new replacement therapeutic sanctuaries should have "open spaces and gardens, complementary therapies available, and private rooms with ensuite facilities."

The Rethink focus groups called for a mental health service built around telephone helpline support, community-based crisis intervention and short-stay “sanctuary” in non-hospital environments offering hotel-like accommodation.

In a separate development, a Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health discussion paper published last month has estimated the number of extra clinicians required to implement a "good" mental health which, by 2010, would meet the government's own standards set out in its 1999 national service framework for mental health.

It stated 67.3% more consultant psychiatrists (from 1776 to 2972) would be needed. Also, 400% more consultant psychotherapists (from 92 to 459), 45.8% more nurses (from 41,485 to 60,618), 85% more clinical psychologists (5518 to 10,209), and 562% more psychotherapists (from 723 to 4,786) would be needed.

Read for yourself:
Rethink's Future Perfect report (pdf)
Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health's discussion paper Defining A Good Mental Health Service (pdf)

See also:
May 25, 2005: One third of mental health staff have threatened to use medication or seclusion to control psychiatric patients' behaviour - findings released in Healthcare Commission audit exposing culture of violence on wards
Sept 6, 2004: More than half of psychiatric inpatients verbally or physically threatened by other patients or staff, survey reports - but MIND's survey's validity likely to be questioned due to small sample

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