NHS tasks mental health trusts with cutting numbers sent for care miles away from home

The NHS has set national standards for trusts to stamp out the practice of patients with mental health conditions being sent hundreds of miles from home for treatment.

NHS mental health trusts will be set individual targets for reducing their reliance on out-of-area placements (OAPs) to treat patients when they don’t have beds or capacity locally.

The changes were introduced in an update, this week, to the "single oversight framework" and will be a key way to hitting the Government goal of eradicating the practice in the NHS by 2021.

In 2016/17 nearly 6,000 patients were sent hours away from friends and family for mental health treatment, according to a British Medical Association report.

This was around 40 per cent higher than just two years earlier, despite a commitment from Theresa May to use “the power of the Government” to support stretched services.

And in some cases these patients, who may be suffering with acute schizophrenia, psychosis or anorexia, were being sent to the other side of the country.

In one extreme case a patient was sent 587 miles from Somerset for treatment in the Scottish Highlands.

The framework is used to designate priority areas for trusts to improve performance, and trusts failing to hit these standards are eligible for additional support.

Any region that is persistently missing, despite this support, can be subject to further action from performance watchdog, NHS Improvement.

The agency told The Independent that this could include appointing its own improvement directors to implement recovery targets, but this would be a last resort.

There are several parts of the country that have already eradicated OAPs, including Sheffield, Bradford and North East London mental health trusts.

Professor Tim Kendall, NHS England’s national clinical director for mental health, is leading the reduction programme with NHS Improvement after previously leading the process in Sheffield.

The Sheffield acute mental health service managed to cut the number of nights its patients spent out of area from 3,000 a year to zero, saving more than £5m a year.

“Every area now has plans to end out of area placements and we have a major national programme overseeing this issue for the first time,” Professor Kendall said.

“The good news is that we have clear evidence from many areas that have already transformed services and done this sustainably so that people can always access acute care locally. We are drawing on expert support from these areas to share learning to help make this happen everywhere.”

"Ending this practice must be a priority for mental health providers,” he added.