MENTAL health patients are among the most vulnerable cared for by the NHS.

Looking after them requires great skill and medical expertise. So we accept that for some patients, it may not always be possible to find a bed in York.

But is Brighton really the best that local mental health bosses can do?

That is where York mother-of-four Maureen Finnegan has been transferred, following an incident at Clifton House, a local secure psychiatric unit for women in York.

The transfer means that if her family wants to visit her, they face a 540-mile round trip.

Maureen, 43, who has been under section at Clifton House for four years, admitted she was transferred to a medium secure unit in Sussex after kicking a nurse.

But she claimed she had not been violent before.

Today, her sister Colleen said since her transfer, neither Maureen’s children nor other family members could visit her.

“I would have thought they could find somewhere nearer than that,” Colleen said.

So would we. Of course, the Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust, which runs mental health services in York, has a duty to ensure patients are placed in units equipped to give them the care they need.

But there must, surely, be somewhere closer than Brighton? The Trust said that it aimed to “ensure the service user is returned to a more local service at the earliest opportunity.” We would hope so. Mental health inspectors have even talked about a “tale of two cities”, with care in York much worse than in Leeds.

It is a situation that must not be allowed to continue. Bringing Maureen nearer to home would be a good start.