Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Mental-health charity helpline faces closure as grant dries up (UK) London Times story - "A leading mental health charity is making an eleventh hour appeal for funds to save its national telephone helpline. Sane, which is closing two regional call centres with the loss of 120 volunteers after government funding dried up, believes it will struggle to keep its London centre running without more funds. The crisis is the latest to befall the charity founded 19 years ago by Marjorie Wallace, a campaigner driven to create the Saneline phone service in response to the failures of the care in the community programme."  
  

Security risks over mental health (UK) BBC story - "Psychiatric staff are being put at risk because of inadequate training and funding, according to the Royal College of Nursing. 'Patients are frustrated because they're not getting the care they should and frustration leads to violent behaviour,' spokeswoman Ann Leedham-Smith told File On 4. More than 100,000 violent incidents occur across the NHS each year, almost half in mental health units..."