Mental health charities and campaign groups have written to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) calling for ethnic data collected on mental health services to be made public.
The letter comes in the wake of growing concerns across the community that the Government plans to bury this information, which was due to be published back in October 2010.
The over-representation of people from BME communities has been one of the most significant trends in detentions under the Mental Health Act since the Count-Me-In (CMI) census began systematic data collection in 2005.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) took over the responsibility from the now defunct Mental Health Act Commission of publishing this information back in 2008.
Findings from previous CMI census reports has shown that detention rates for people from African Caribbean communities has steadily increased, while declining for every other ethnic group.
They also put the spotlight on inequalities in treatment and care for this group which have continued to get worse. However, new data which should have been made public back in October 2010 on patients’ experiences has still not been disclosed.
With people from African Caribbean communities over- represented in the most coercive parts of the mental health system, campaigners fear that the failure to publicise ethnicity data is a move to side-line the concerns of one the most marginalised groups.
“The growing numbers of black people detained under the Mental Health Act and the long stays in secure hospitals do not make comfortable reading but we cannot afford to ignore this if we want to see improvements in this sector,” Matilda MacAttram, director of Black Mental Health UK said.
Community leaders say that unless the Equalities Commission makes sure that the CQC continues to make this data public, this issue will be pushed off the health and social care agenda with catastrophic consequences.
Prof Sashi Sashidaran panellist on the David Bennett Inquiry report said: “This data is the only way that agencies working in this area are able to find out exactly who is in the system. The delay in publishing findings for the last year is tantamount to the censorship of bad news.”
Source: BMHUK
