{"id":166355,"date":"2025-06-08T01:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T01:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166355\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T01:00:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T01:00:41","slug":"patients-dying-due-to-crises-in-manchesters-mental-health-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166355\/","title":{"rendered":"Patients dying due to crises in Manchester’s mental health services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miller claimed community mental health<\/a> services in Manchester are \u201cstill hugely under-resourced\u201d and that the striking workers will continue to campaign for better funding more widely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to support collective action and come together, because that\u2019s how we win and resist. Not only have we resisted, but we\u2019ve actually gained investment in this climate,\u201d Miller added. \u201cThat needs to be coordinated on a national level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Staff in Greater Manchester mental health services said they were concerned for patient safety. Image: John Mulligan<\/p>\n

Dr John Mulligan, a Unite union representative and clinical psychologist in the Manchester EIP team, believes problems persist. He claimed: \u201cThere\u2019s been multiple horrible tragedies in our service and across the community mental health teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole secondary care services are in an absolutely diabolical situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mulligan\u2019s team works with 14- to 65-year-olds who develop the first episode of psychosis. EIP services have been found<\/a> to reduce the risk of a person with psychosis attempting to take their own life from 15% to just 1%.<\/p>\n

However, Mulligan claimed there are \u201cthousands\u201d of people suffering with their mental health in Greater Manchester who are not getting the support they need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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He said the caseload \u201cjust swells and swells\u201d \u2013 staff are meant to have 12 patients allocated to them, but instead they have 25 to 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens then is all the sensitive, nice stuff that we\u2019re supposed to be doing doesn\u2019t happen. There\u2019s been crisis after crisis,\u201d Mulligan said.<\/p>\n

A Freedom of Information Request sent by striking workers to the trust and seen by the Big Issue revealed that 10 people had died while on a waiting list for mental health support as part of Greater Manchester\u2019s \u2018waiting well\u2019 scheme since 2022, while 63 had been hospitalised.<\/p>\n

Mulligan said he is unable to share specifics of cases while investigations are ongoing but claimed the services are in \u201csuch a diabolic state that people are dying all over the place\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s horrendous. There\u2019s a massive waitlist of people who are severely unwell. They are just neglected and left at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Annabel Marsh, a former community psychiatric nurse who now runs a peer support group for people suffering with severe mental health conditions in Manchester, said that people used to be allocated a care coordinator who would regularly visit them \u2013 sometimes as much as weekly \u2013 but the service is \u201cunder-resourced\u201d and it is no longer standard practice.<\/p>\n

When the group, Community Works, first started more than 10 years ago, each of the members had a care coordinator allocated to them, but now only three of the 35 members of the group receive this support.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTheir situations haven\u2019t changed. They still have ongoing issues with psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia, severe bipolar, with recurrent admissions, medication which has terrible side effects and causes quite a lot of physical issues as well, including type two diabetes and weight gain. These are issues which should be monitored. That just isn\u2019t happening,\u201d Marsh explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people have outpatient appointments with a psychiatrist, but that might be once or twice a year. If they go into crisis, there\u2019s nowhere to ring for a rapid response. If people start to relapse, it\u2019s extremely difficult to get a response quick enough to prevent hospital admissions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of our group have had hospital<\/a> admissions, almost all of which have necessitated the police getting involved because things have become so severe. People lose insight and awareness that they\u2019re very unwell, because there\u2019s no community services to step up support quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one recent case, a group member who had been \u201cextremely at risk for a long time with symptoms of relapse\u201d was receiving no support from mental health services. She was living in \u201cdeteriorated conditions\u201d and was unable to look after herself. Community Works provides a hot meal twice a week, because otherwise \u201cpeople might not be eating at all\u201d.<\/p>\n

Marsh, who is in her 70s, said one of the reasons she came off the nursing register is because she does not want to be \u201cheld responsible for what\u2019s happening to people\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI do my best to alert services when things are going badly, but as an ex-nurse and now as a friend to the people who come to the group, it is deeply concerning when things go wrong, and it\u2019s just constant.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"John Mulligan is the Unite representative and clinical psychologist. Image: John Mulligan<\/p>\n

Mulligan said he has heard \u201chorror stories\u201d from mental health teams across the country. Around 120 people die in England every day from preventable mental health conditions, according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a misconception sometimes about striking workers, that they\u2019re disgruntled and at odds,\u201d Mulligan said. \u201cBut actually, we\u2019ve got an enthusiastic and skilful team, and we\u2019re unionised. We give a shit. We\u2019ve managed to have a coherent group for a few years, and we can see all of the damage and destruction, heartache and death that\u2019s occurring locally, and we just have had enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team is fantastic, and although we\u2019re brushed off the feet and struggling and facing lots of stress related to that, we are also motivated to fight to make things better. Most other teams don\u2019t have that, and when we don\u2019t, then what we are is complicit in a system that\u2019s actually contributed towards death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulligan claimed that \u201cmany EIP patients\u201d are gaining weight at a rate of up to 17kg in one year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s 15 to 20 years of reduced life expectancy,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re the starting point for early intervention \u2013 but sadly, we\u2019re complicit in and we\u2019re contributing towards problems that continue in terms of physical health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The striking workers have secured a deal of a recurrent \u00a31m a year. Image: John Mulligan<\/p>\n

Unison North West<\/a> regional organiser Paddy Cleary said: \u201cEarly-intervention mental health services are a lifeline for many at-risk people. Getting the right support at the right time can prevent a crisis, providing help long before someone reaches breaking point. This critical work goes on day in, day out.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He added that the \u201coutcome of this dispute is fair and will help keep communities safe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Research has found<\/a> that if every patient with psychosis received effective early intervention, it would save the NHS \u00a344m every year.<\/p>\n

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \u201cToo often, people experiencing mental health crises are not getting the support or care they deserve, and this government is taking action to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

They claimed to be transforming mental health services backed by an extra \u00a3680m in government funding \u2013 \u201chiring more staff, delivering more talking therapies, and getting waiting lists down\u201d. It has also launched one of the world\u2019s first 24\/7 mental health crisis support services via NHS 111 and announced a \u00a326m investment in new crisis centres.<\/p>\n

Yet there are concerns this is not enough amid cuts to NHS services and as people with mental health conditions also risk losing their financial support while the government plans to tighten the eligibility criteria for disability benefits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mulligan said: \u201cIf I had to say what the biggest problem is with the NHS mental health services, it would be a lack of compassion. We need staff to actually be able to do their job properly. We need staff to be skilled and comfortable, certainly.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut ultimately, what we need is compassionate decision making. We need time. We need resources. All of that costs a lot of money, but it\u2019ll be very well spent, and it would be money that would save not just stress and human suffering, but lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cBeing in a system whereby we\u2019re allowing or letting or we\u2019re ignoring the fact that the most vulnerable in society are dying is intolerable, and it\u2019s so unfair. So it is upsetting for all of our members. That\u2019s one of the reasons that drove us forward to be out on strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust and NHS England did not respond to Big Issue\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Promises are easy to break. Sign\u00a0<\/strong>Big Issue\u2019s petition for a Poverty Zero law<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and help us make tackling poverty a legal requirement, not just a policy priority.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.\u00a0To support our work buy a copy of the magazine<\/a>\u00a0or get the app from the\u00a0App Store<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Google Play<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miller claimed community mental health services in Manchester are \u201cstill hugely under-resourced\u201d and that the striking workers will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[5554,105,13975,4348,11525,2465,218,12,211,7101,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-166355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-community","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-and-wellbeing","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-learning-and-employment","13":"tag-manchester","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nhs","17":"tag-strikes","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114645042972944093","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}