The latest report by the Healthcare
Commission into the ethnicity of mental health patients in England and Wales - Count Me In, again
highlights the disproportionate number of people from black communities who are
in-patients in mental health institutions.
Admission of people on mental health wards has fallen overall from 33,785 in 2005 to 31,187 in 2007 however this report reveals an increase of the numbers of black patients being sectioned.
The Census report asserts that some ethnic groups have significantly higher rates of mental illness, the questions has to be raised about how people from ethnic minorities are treated once in the system. The publication of this report comes almost ten years after the death of David ‘Rocky' Bennett and shows that black men more likely to be forcibly restrained and placed in seclusion than any other ethnic group.
Professor Lord Patel of Bradford, chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission, told BBC online "I am deeply concerned about the continued high levels of admission detention suffered by some black groups especially the Black Other group - mostly black second and third generation young men.
"There are some very serious questions that need answering about the way these people are being treated."
Census figures also found that two-thirds of mental health inpatients are in mixed-sex wards.
But the proportion of inpatients in independent mental health hospitals increased from 10% in 2005 to 14% in 2007.
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