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‘Dire shortage’ of mental health workers leaving staff unable to provide care

MENTAL HEALTH workers are overworked, demoralised and delivering compromised care due to a dire shortage of staff amid rising demand, says the British Medical Association (BMA).

More than half of 1,036 mental health professionals told a BMA survey that they were too busy to give the care they would like to.

The survey, published today by the doctors’ union, also found that 44 per cent of respondents said that they felt demoralised and that their workload was unmanageable.

BMA mental health policy head Dr Andrew Molodynski warned that despite mental health accounting for 25 per cent of all healthcare activity, only 14 per cent of healthcare funding is allocated to it.

“The same level of resources must be made available in mental health, so that the vulnerable patients who depend on these services can expect the same level of care and the same level of outcomes as they do in physical healthcare,” he said.

“Anything less is morally unacceptable.”

Association of Clinical Psychologists chairman Mike Wang said: “This survey vividly illustrates the dire shortage of mental health professionals and gross underfunding of mental health services at a time of overwhelmingly increasing demand, resulting in serious compromise to the quality and adequacy of care for the public.”

Since 2009, 7,000 nurses, health visitors and midwives and 6,000 clinical support staff have been lost in England.

One consultant psychiatrist told the BMA that they were “being thrown to the wolves” due to staff shortages and a lack of support.

The doctors’ union is calling for local spending on mental health to double over the next 10 years, workforce shortages to be addressed, improved access to training and better health and wellbeing support.

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