UK mental wards may do more harm than good: Lancet

LONDON (Reuters) - Many mental health wards in Britain may do more harm than good and on some, patients are subjected to violence, verbal abuse and sexual harassment, according to special reports in the Lancet on Friday.

The medical journal said access to psychological treatment was "pitiful" and public attitudes to the mentally ill were worsening.

"Currently too many wards are at best untherapeutic and at worse unsafe," the journal said in a commentary. It noted that one in four people in Britain would be affected by a mental health problem during their lifetime.

The House of Commons passed a Mental Health Bill earlier in July that critics say will trample on the rights of people suffering from mental illness and deter those who need help from seeking it.

The reforms -- which can include the detention of potentially dangerous patients -- followed a public outcry after a series of murders by mentally ill people.

People with psychiatric problems commit around 60 murders per year. But patients in mental health wards may be in bigger danger than the public, the Lancet said.

It cited a National Audit of Violence by the Royal College of Psychiatrists that found more than a third of patients had been attacked, threatened or made to feel unsafe, and almost half had witnessed this behavior.

A move toward community-based care, which has led to the closing of many facilities and fewer beds for patients who most need care, is partly to blame, the Lancet said.

"Staff have gone to the sexiest part of the service, that is community mental-health teams, and inpatient wards have largely been depleted of talented, experienced people," Graham Thornicroft, a professor of community psychiatry at King's College London, told the Lancet.

One solution would be cutting down the amount of paperwork and form-filling to free up time for nurses to concentrate on caring for patients, Thornicroft said.