Mental Health Service

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31416, 8 July 1967, Page 12

Mental Health Service

The Government cannot solve the difficulties that abound in the country’s mental hospitals simply by spending more money. More money will have to be spent on the mental health service. Of that there is no doubt More important is the question how the money should be spent From all the complaints against the hospitals in recent years and from all the discussion these have occasioned, no really clear line for action has emerged. The hospitals and their work have been changing steadily in recent years. The increased number of patients, the deficiencies of old buildings, and the shortage of staff have compelled some of these changes which, on the whole, have been advantageous to the service and have been facilitated by more generous Government spending, by improved methods of treatment, and by a more sympathetic and more enlightened public awareness of the needs of the mentally ill. Yet the size of the problem still defeats the means available to deal with it This discrepancy demands a drastic and far-reaching plan, not merely to extend the present service but perhaps to remodel the service to meet the needs of the patients within our limited capacity—which could surely be expanded—to produce doctors, nurses, and other qualified workers. In the last decade expenditure on mental hospitals has almost trebled. The bill in 1957-58 was £3,366,000. The Government expects it to be £9,630,000 this year, and it may well be more. Last year £5.7 million was spent on salaries and wages. Indicative of the shortage of staff in the hospitals, a quarter of this sum was for the payment of overtime. The provision in the Estimates for overtime this year is even higher—£l,63o,ooo. Clearly the hospitals would be much better served if the money now spent on overtime could be paid to more staff working normal hours at ordinary rates. Under the present system it is very doubtful whether higher rates of ordinary pay—met from the present overtime bill—would attract an appreciable number of new workers to the hospitals. By creating a greater variety of services and extending the treatment of outpatients it might be possible to find more nurses and welfare workers among men and women not attracted by the work in the present hospitals.

The State has spent about £8 million on additions and new buildings for mental hospitals in the last 10 years. The Government asks Parliament this year to vote £1,100,000 for new buildings. This will be useful only if it is spent, and spent wisely. Last year an even larger vote of £1,175,000 was underspent by £341,000. Some critics of the mental health service have argued that more money should be spent on staff and less on new buildings. Until the whole system of treatment is overhauled so that fewer patients have to be admitted to hospitals this argument is questionable. Most of the critics of the service have offered only piecemeal solutions to its problems. The service badly needs repairs; it needs a new and comprehensive plan for redevelopment much more.