Health minister admits “problems” in community care

The procedure for treating patients with mental illness is experiencing “problems”, health minister Rosie Winterton has admitted.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend ahead of a report by the Department of Health into the number of murders committed by released mental health patients, Ms Winterton argued that mental health provisions within the community needs to be “reflected” in government legislation.

Ms Winterton said that a significant problem was the number of patients who are discharged from hospitals that “don’t continue to take medication, who don’t continue to stay in touch with mental health services”.

The Avoidable Deaths report commissioned by the National Patient Safety Agency and conducted by Professor Louis Appleby, clinical director for mental health for the government, is expected to reveal that each week one person is killed by a psychiatric patient, the Independent reports.

According to the study, a third of these deaths are caused by people considered not to be a danger, with a further one in six attributed to patients not continuing with their medication.