Independent Online Edition > Health Medical > Mentally ill 'still being denied a basic level of care'

Independent Online Edition > Health Medical > Mentally ill 'still being denied a basic level of care': "Patients with psychiatric problems who desperately need round-the-clock support are being failed by mental health services.

A report published by the Healthcare Commission, the watchdog that inspects health services, warns that improvements must be made in out-of-hours crisis care.

Inspectors found huge variation in the availability of help outside normal working hours. The majority of areas do have specially trained staff providing this support, but under a half of people using services said they had the phone number of someone from their local mental health service whom they could contact late at night.

Also, nearly two-thirds of mental health services received a 'poor' rating on how they provided access to crisis accommodation out of hours." Read complete post here.