Black Mental Health UK: Care Quality Commission report

Human rights campaigns group Black Mental Health UK has welcomed the  Care Quality Commission’s  (CQC) first annual report on the use of the Mental Health Act , which has highlighted human rights concerns in the treatment of detained patients.

This new report entitled ‘Monitoring the use of the Mental Health Act 2009/10’ has shed light on practices which are likely to violate human rights law.

The 124 page report shows that hospitals are detaining patients in inappropriately secure settings and medicating them without their consent.

Concerns have also been raised over the imposition of Community Treatment Orders (CTO) on patients who have no history of refusing to take their medication or co-operating with community services. 

The QCQ report confirms black patients more likely to be subject to CTO’s even though evidence shows that close to a third (30%) of patients subject to these orders have no history of refusing to take their medication or co-operating with community services.

The health regulator expressed concern as to why there are more patients from some of the black and minority ethnic (BME) groups placed on a CTO compared to the proportions among detained patients.

The general cultural shift towards more defensive practices and aversion to risk has also been noted as priority areas where services need to change. 

The lack of privacy,  the over occupancy of beds, the lack of access to a clinician except in a ward round and the move to treating patients in secure settings are also touched on this report.  With figures from the Count Me In Censuses showing that black people make up over 40% of people within medium secure psychiatric settings the failures highlighted in this new report will hit black Britons hardest.

Health campaigners and professionals from the community warned of the dangers that provision within the new Mental Health Act would have on Britain’s black communities back in 2007 when the Bill received Royal Assent.

Changes in the 2007 Mental Health Act came with a health warning of the impact CTO’s (also known as psychiatric asbos) would have on the  community. Today’s report confirms health experts worst fears.