Bridging the mental and physical health gap

The failure by general hospitals to integrate physical and mental healthcare services is leading to poor care for patients with a physical illness who also happen to have a mental health condition, the latest report from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) reveals. The study is the result of an in-depth review into 552 cases (all patients had a physical illness and a mental health condition) where the confidential enquiry looked into the impact a patient’s mental health condition had on the care they received in hospital. Most of the 552 patients had been admitted through hospital emergency departments (ED).

The NCEPOD report comes at a time when health professionals are expressing concerns that patients with a severe mental illness develop medical conditions a decade earlier in their lives than other people, and die 15 to 20 years earlier as a consequence. Also, a significant number of patients in general hospitals with physical health conditions often have more common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. 

Calling on general hospitals to integrate physical and mental healthcare services as a matter of urgency, report co-author Dr Vivek Srivastava, NCEPOD clinical co-ordinator and consultant in acute medicine, says that general hospital staff often don’t have the knowledge or confidence to care for people with mental health conditions appropriately: “Good care was only provided to 46% of patients in this study, showing patients who had a mental health condition suffered the double-whammy of both poor physical and mental healthcare.