Two-year wait for mental-health treatment not good enough

According to a BBC Freedom of Information request, a third of NHS Trusts are missing the government guidelines for psychological therapy, which should start within six weeks for 75% of referrals.

What’s more concerning is that, in some cases, there were patients waiting more than two years for the vital mental health treatment they needed.

Mental health intervention is key to saving lives. Although we all know the NHS is stretched right now, lives are clearly at risk if some patients are having to wait too long for the psychological treatment they need.

The longer timeframes mental health patients have to wait, then the greater risk they face of not getting that much-needed help need in time.

Failures to refer patients for treatment in all areas of medicine in a timely fashion is an important topic to debate.

In many scenarios, failing to refer a patient for treatment quickly enough can lead to conditions and illnesses progressing past the point where the risk of further harm increases, and mental health is no different. In the same way that an infection left untreated can spread, mental health patients without the care they need can decline as well.

Waiting for help for conditions like personality and eating disorders have been cited as one area for potential improvement.

Prevention over reaction

A lot of medical negligence claims we help people for arise because of a lack of treatment provided when it was needed. If a mental health patient’s condition declines because they’re having to wait too long for vital intervention, there may be a legal case to answer for.

As we often say, prevention is far better than reaction. We do not want to see cases where mental health patients are declining and suffering greater harm, and then have to claim because they were let down by the NHS. At the end of the day, they are vulnerable individuals and their rights are enshrined in law.

We must not forget that, in the worse case scenarios, a patient could take their own life. They need vital treatment before that scenario becomes a tragic reality.