UP TO £3 million has been spent since the start of last year on sending York and Selby patients with mental health problems to hospital beds elsewhere, including some hundreds of miles away.

Patients suffering from serious conditions have been sent to beds as far afield as Glasgow, London, Middlesbrough and Manchester, due to a lack of suitable treatment or available places locally.

The cost of funding these beds in private and NHS hospitals is between £1,806,228 and £3,047,148 since the start of 2012, The Press has found, based on variable costs per night.

Patients have been sent out of area 214 times, spending 4,596 nights in hospitals away from their home, between the start of last year and mid-November this year, according to information revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

On some of these stays patients suffering very severe mental health problems have had out-of-area stays of up to 128 days.

Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said patients have been out-of-area due to clinical need and availability of help locally.

David Smith, former head of York Mind and now director of development for The Retreat, said: “The cost to the individual is more important than financial interest in this case. This is not just a York problem, it’s a national problem.

“The real challenge is the impact it has on the individual, who is at their most vulnerable. When someone is being admitted to an acute hospital they are really unwell and need the support of their friends and family.

“Imagine being woken at 2am and being taken by ambulance to a hospital, where you may be sectioned, and you wake up in a bed where you don’t know where you are and it’s miles away – sometimes the other end of the country from your home. For the family there is the immediate crisis that their loved one is taken to a part of the country where they can’t see them. These can be lengthy stays.”

He called for regional and national discussion on the matter and said a new Bootham Park Hospital was “absolutely necessary”.

Mr Smith said patients should not be staying out of area for months at a time and urged people in those positions to contact advocacy services. Bed prices for mental health services vary from £393 to £663 per day, depending on the service and treatment, Vale of York CCG said.

Dr Mick Phythian, of the York Defend Our NHS group, said: “The group is distressed on behalf of those patients, their family and friends. People with mental health problems are being sent away for treatment at great cost to the taxpayer as well as huge emotional cost to them and their families.

“It’s well beyond time these issues were resolved before more patients suffer.”

A spokesman for Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust which is responsible for mental health service provision in York and Selby, said demand for beds could fluctuate.

The spokesman said: “It is a priority for us to ensure that people are cared for close to home. We are aware that the number of people being cared for outside the York area has risen in recent months.

“We have taken action to address this, which has reduced the number by half in the last month alone.

“We are working closely with our commissioners in York and North Yorkshire to look at the demand for beds now and in the future and to consider how we can meet needs locally.

“We are not commissioned to provide a psychiatric intensive care service in York and have agreed that, wherever possible, patients who need these services should be transferred to services in neighbouring areas.”

A spokesman for Vale of York CCG said: “The Partnership Commissioning Unit works closely with Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust to ensure that those who require treatment out of area, do so for the shortest period necessary.”

The FOI found patients had been sent to locations including Middlesbrough, Harrogate, London, Harrow, South Shields, Bradford, Greater Manchester, Mansfield and Sunderland.

They stayed for an average of 21 days. The youngest of the patients was 19 and the oldest 86. The average age was 47.


Strain of being far away

For Mark*, the distressing moment his brother was taken into hospital was made much worse by the fact he was taken 100 miles away from his home in the York area.

He said: “We were travelling some weeks up to 1,000 miles a week. It was very stressful because we couldn’t get to him. He wanted to be near home and near people he could trust.

“He is still not home. It has been very, very upsetting for us, but particularly for him because he knows he is miles away. If he was in Bootham we could see him every day.

“I know this is a far from isolated case.”

Mark said he believes the move, which has seen his brother taken into a private hospital, has slowed his recovery and called for action to mean mental health inpatients could stay near to their family.

*Name has been changed to protect identity


‘Beautiful’ hospital needs replacing

BOOTHAM Park Hospital should be closed and replaced under new plans to improve mental health provisions in the city, experts have said.

There are currently 13 beds for women and 16 for men, as well as a separate elderly unit at Bootham.

However, a ward for very high-intensity patients in extreme distress has closed, meaning Bootham can no longer offer psychiatric intensive care.

The Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (PFT) is therefore not commissioned to provide intensive care in York and said “wherever possible” these patients are transferred to neighbouring areas.

The trust – which has called for new facilities to replace the hospital, which was built in the 1700s and is no longer fit for purpose – said it could not say how many more beds would be needed in a new facility.

Speaking earlier this year, Jill Copeland, chief operating officer at Leeds and York PFT, said: “We have got Bootham Park Hospital, which is a really lovely old building. It’s a beautiful building, but it’s not the best place to care for people in 21st-century mental health care so we’re looking to work with the clinical commissioning group, who are keen on this as well, and the property service company which owns the building.

“What we’d ideally like is a new building, new accommodation built for people who need inpatient care.”