Patients are kept prisoner (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Patients are kept prisoner

Mentally ill people are being forced to spend hours locked up in police cells due to a lack of qualified doctors in Swindon. Vulnerable people who have committed no crime and pose no threat to society are regularly forced to wait in bare cells before they get specialist treatment.

Wiltshire's chief police surgeon, Dr Peter Crouch, said the service is so bad it is on the verge of collapse and is calling for urgent action.

A week ago, a man spent 10 hours in a cell at Westlea police station because a Section 12 Approved doctor one who is qualified to assess mental disorders could not be found.

Wiltshire currently has around 50 S12 doctors, but just three operate in Swindon.

As a result police surgeons are regularly called in to do the job themselves, despite not being contracted to do so.

He said: "No one seems to know whose responsibility it is to maintain this vital service. Everyone passes the buck and shrugs their shoulders saying 'what can we do?'

"Police surgeons feel the situation has got so bad that being regularly called upon to act as a sticking plaster to prop up a failing service is no longer acceptable.

"We feel that we have long been taken advantage of, and call for urgent action to put in place a service that makes the availability of S12 doctors more of a certainty than the lottery it is today."

A person needs to be assessed by two doctors, usually a consultant psychiatrist or GP approved under section 12 of the Mental Health Act, before they can be detained in hospital, or sectioned.

Dr Crouch explained how last weekend Social Services tried in vain to find a second doctor to assess the mentally ill patient.

As a result the patient was admitted to Sandalwood Court, a psychiatric clinic in Stratton St Margaret, but he said this was a last resort.

He added: "The number of S12 doctors in Swindon has dropped to the level where it only takes one doctor to go on holiday before patients' assessments are delayed purely because no doctor can be found."

Jan Stubbings, chief executive of the PCT, said the three S12s in Swindon were also forensic medical examiners for the Wiltshire Police.

"This often means they are not able to carry out both responsibilities and delays can sometimes occur, particularly out of normal working hours," she said.

"The PCT is currently writing to all GPs to encourage them to become approved under Section 12 to increase the numbers available.

"We also have access to a list of all Section 12 doctors from across the South of England who can be called on in an emergency.

"There is a national shortage of S12 doctors. Swindon is no different to other areas."