Mental health patients facing 300-mile journey for a hospital bed

The number of mental health patients in England having to travel outside their area to get a hospital bed has gone up by 13% in the last year.

Nearly 5,500 patients had to leave their area for care, including some who had to travel almost 300 miles from their homes.

Figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests by BBC News and Community Care magazine show the increase.

Travelling outside their area means patients are being cared for in a unit not run by the trust whose care they are under.

It can leave patients far away from support networks and there have been calls for the practice to be stopped.

In 2014-15, 4,804 patients were treated out of area but in 2015-16 that figure had risen to 5,411, a rise of 12.6%, according to information provided by 42 of 56 trusts.

Some of the longest distances travelled were 286 miles, between Devon and Bradford, and Manchester to Southampton – 232 miles.

Mind chief executive Paul Farmer called the figures “a sorry state of affairs”.

He told the BBC: “It costs more to do things badly, and the human cost is far greater.

“People with mental health problems deserve better.”

Care minister Alistair Burt said it was unacceptable that so many people were being treated so far from their homes.

He said: “We have increased mental health funding to £11.7bn, have accepted the recommendation of the Mental Health Taskforce that the inappropriate use of out-of-area treatments for adults in acute care must be eliminated by 2020-21, and will work to a faster timetable if at all possible.”

_{Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2016, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Dominic Lipinski / PA Wire.}