IT IS probable that no single individual is responsible for the dire state in which York mental health care now finds itself. The vulnerable are betrayed and the taxpayer is plundered.

Those in control appear to have turned a blind eye to the suffering their complacency has inflicted on individuals in need.

Mentally ill people have lost their lives. This is not merely a case of management incompetence.

Health professionals at the highest level, doctors, and psychiatrists, must all along have recognised that their drug-obsessed system was flawed.

Instead of instigating necessary changes many have devoted themselves to NHS-funded projects at the university, as far away from mentally ill people as possible.

As is now too evident, Bootham Park Hospital long ago became the poor relation. Let’s face it: an implacable ex-stately home with bars at the windows has no place in modern mental health care.

It is also for the public to consider whether self seeking health professionals have anything to contribute to a serious and compassionate understanding of mental illness.

Gareth Papps, Stillington, York.