Dorset Out of Area Beds
Lauren Bridges
An Avoidable Death
Just over a year after Dorset NHS committed to the ending of Out Of Area Beds Lauren Bridges was dead.
Dorset NHS needs more mental health beds to be available.
It was in the early Spring of 2021 that I contacted Mark Harris (Head of Mental Health Service and Learning Disabilities NHS Dorset) to obtain the view of Dorset NHS regarding new government guidelines of ending Out of Area beds. He said..
'Over the course of the last year, the need to place individuals in out of area acute hospital beds has diminished and the Dorset system is on course to achieve the government aim of having no acute hospital out of area placements. ‘
This was in relation to an article I wrote in May 2021 as Chairman of the Hughes Unit Group Supporters (HUGS) in May 2021 where even being treated within Dorset can feel like being ’Out of Area’. In 2016 the department of Health and Social Care stated that; ‘Patients should be treated in a location which helps them to retain the contact they want to maintain with family, carers and friends, and to feel as familiar as possible with the local environment…..It should be eliminated by the spring of 2021.
Yet Lauren was moved over 250 miles away to Manchester in July 2021 due to the lack of beds in Dorset and by Feb 2022 Lauren had taken her own life.
The one of the main contributing factors to her suicide was the distance from family and friends. Lauren’s Mother said "Sending mental health patients hundreds of miles from home to receive treatment does not work.
If there were enough beds within Dorset this wouldn’t have happened. Over the last 30 years the number of inpatient beds in England has fallen by 73% from over 67,000 to under 19,000 with promises of greater resources for ’Care in the Community’ however there is still a need for inpatient facilities for those suffering from acute symptoms and there is possibly not enough flexibility in the system.
In Dorset there used to be interim care beds and half way houses dotted around Dorset where people can receive short term care but these are no more which could prevent long term stays in Forston Clinic and St Annes. This is a combination of high running costs and lack of qualified mental health staff, particularly in rural areas. There needs to be better co-operation with local authorities and charities to increase the bed capacity to make it more fluid and flexible.