Last week, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published its second annual report on the state on health care and adult social care in England. It reveals that whilst overall standards have improved, mental healthcare services are still lagging.

The CQC is the independent regulator of health and social care in England, whose investigative remit includes the NHS, local authorities, private companies, as well as voluntary organisations. The recently published report is based upon extensive findings from their regulatory, assessment, and review work over 2009/2010, and focuses on the outcomes for people using healthcare and social care services.
 
Overall, 86% of people living in council-funded care homes received care rated as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ – up 11% on 2008/2009. Furthermore, highlights of overall improvements include: a 35% drop in reported cases of MRSA; a 9% increase in councils rated ‘excellent’ at improving the life quality of people using their services; and an overall continued increase in social care performance with, for the seventh successive year, no councils rated ‘poor’.

However, the report revealed some worrying facts particularly about mental health care services in the UK. The report states that, “the variable quality of inpatient mental health services, as suggested by our visits to wards with detained patients, continued to cause us concern”. Worryingly, 56 out of 311 wards sampled did not have access to independent mental health advocacy services for patients detained there, with an alarming 13% of patients claiming that their own views about their care plan were ignored. Despite growth in the need for mental health services, 2009/2010 saw a 5% decrease in the number of people using these services – suggesting that we’re becoming more reluctant to sign-up for mental healthcare help.

In response to the report, the Alzheimer’s Society commented that whilst it is “reassuring to hear that care home provision and quality is improving in some areas, unfortunately we know this isn’t happening everywhere”. Moreover, as Louise Lakey, Policy Manager at the Alzeimer’s Society, puts it: “good general care does not always equate to good dementia care”.

The main concern for mental health charities is that people with mental health problems are treated with the same dignity and respect as everyone else. This means that care providers have to improve the level of choice and control that they grant their patients if the UK’s overall healthcare improvements are to be matched in the specific domain of mental healthcare.

To read more about the CQC’s report, click here: http://www.cqc.org.uk/stateofcare2009-10/reporthome.cfm