Putting the frighteners on!?

It seems that so many of the news stories at the moment are painting an extremely poor picture of those with mental health problems. From the sad case of Nicola Edginton  to babies being smothered by their ill mothers.

To this I would like to quote from a Time to change website 

… In fact, 95 per cent of homicides are committed by people who have not been diagnosed with a mental health problem…

Contrary to popular belief, the incidence of homicide committed by people diagnosed with mental health problems has stayed at a fairly constant level since the 1990s

A fact that so many articles, even in defence of those with mental health problems not being a greater risk, seem to have completely missed from their defence. Like this one for instance from the Guardian, It's open season on 'dangerous schizophrenics' Wouldn’t this have been the opportune time to mention how little those with mental health problems contribute to overall violent crime rates?

I am amazed in fact that even though many feel my outrage they seem incapable of even garnering the simplest of statistics to back up their claim. It’s not like it took me more than 3 seconds to look up the figures on google.

This is not helping and it offends me that so many who write for the online services don’t or won’t spend the time to get some actual facts in their stories as well as there outrage as it seems far more convincing to me.

I will also add that violent crime on people with mental health problems is rife on the BBC’s website this article Mentally ill 'at high risk of being victim of violence'

Mentally ill people are four times more likely to be a victim of violence, according to an international study

However the only study I could find listed on the Lancet site was on the under 18’s and therefore may not translate to the adult populations however as the BBC didn’t link or name the study sufficiently well I can’t be sure that I have the correct one.

(Please see my earlier post on disabled hatred for more on this)

Really what are the press trying to do to this country, frighten us all?

And even the stories on mental health care aren’t really helping,

The government is reducing the budget (see earlier post the post code lottery)

There are reports of poor care and training for those aiming to help the vulnerable with Dementia

And yet again with caring for Vulnerable children

All lead me to believe that it is far better not to be ill than anything else it certainly doesn’t seem like things are getting too much better. (See post mental health care? Or are we being side-lined yet again)

So now after the reports by the care quality on commission on funding and social care there is now one out on safeguarding children.

And sadly it’s even more worrying than the others in the summary they say

Many trusts either did not have, or possibly found it difficult to identify, a dedicated budget for training in safeguarding. Just 37% said they had a dedicated budget.

The average proportion of eligible staff with up-to-date training at level one, intended for all those working in healthcare, was worryingly low at just 54%.

It goes on to say

The proportion of eligible staff, across a number of groups, who were not up to date on training at level 2, which is for those staff who have regular contact with parents, children and young people, also concerns us, particularly since this issue was highlighted in earlier reviews. For this latest review, we found that:

In acute trusts, on average 42% of surgeons, anaesthetists and theatre nurses who were eligible for training at level 2 were up to date.

In acute trusts, on average 65% of paediatric inpatient, day case or outpatient staff working in acute and community services were up to date.

In PCTs (primary care trust), on average just 35% of those GPs who were eligible for level 2 training were up to date.

Which I think just goes to show precisely how much people are willing to take this seriously as they can’t even find the money or time to train their staff in this issue and to top it all it’s not new either as it was seen in previous years reviews.

Come on get a grip effective safe guarding cannot happen if you won’t take the trouble to train the staff properly. It’s absolutely outrageous 35% of GP’s trained in safe guarding they are the first line of defence, the place where children and parents are likely to go and they are worse than all the others.

So maybe we do need the frighteners putting on because it seems the health professions although listening don’t seem to be doing anything?

However it would be nice if these failings could be highlighted far more often than the small proportion of violent crimes that are attributable to those with mental health problems.