Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Mental health helpline to close as Government cuts funding (UK)Story in The Independent - " Thousands of Britain's most desperate and isolated people will be deprived of access to the country's largest mental health helpline after a £1m cut in government funding. Saneline, run by the charity Sane, is being forced to close two of its three national centres, with the loss of 127 trained volunteers and 13 full-time staff. The charity currently answers 1,000 calls a week from those in distress. Demand is such it could cater for another 11,000 calls if it had the means..."  
  

NHS faces mental health ethnic survey (UK)Story in The Guardian - "The government will this week order the NHS to introduce comprehensive ethnic monitoring of all mental health patients in England after evidence of persistent racial discrimination against black and minority ethnic groups. Rosie Winterton, the health minister, will publish a long-delayed response to an official inquiry into the death of David 'Rocky' Bennett, a 38-year-old Jamaican-born Rastafarian who died in a psychiatric ward in Norwich in 1998. ... She is expected to order all primary care trusts in England to conduct an ethnic census of mental health patients and compare the results with the ethnic make-up of the local area. Each trust will be required to produce an action plan to tailor mental health services more closely to local demographic needs."