How many are locked up?

Published: 3 March, 2011

• “SECTIONING” under the Mental Health Act is one of the very few ways people can be locked away without trial in the UK. It is really troubling that an elderly man with dementia has been locked up far from his Camden home under these provisions when the paperwork is not in order (Tribunal rules that Tom’s section order was invalid, February 24). 

It has taken four months and a Mental Health Review Tribunal to bring these failings of Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust to public attention. How many more people is this trust holding without due process and/or faulty paperwork? It has been suggested we shouldn’t become too upset by this and just recognise it for what it is – an attempt by the trust to reduce its paperwork costs and help meet the £12million-plus cuts it needs to make in the current financial year.  

Perhaps it is better seen as an example of a trust which is not careful enough and takes undue risks and that this should be weighed against its proposals to close two of its hospitals, with the loss of nearly 100 beds, a large number of them at St Mary’s House, which caters for elderly patients, many with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

When these cuts are combined with council cuts then the future for this group looks particularly bleak.

SANJAY SHAH
Glenmore Road, NW3