The Royal College of Psychiatrists has reported that nearly 38,000 vital follow-up appointments with mental health patients were missed at the time when they were most at risk of suicide. The College has called for “urgent action” to ensure more people are seen for follow-ups within 72 hours of their discharge from inpatient care, to prevent them from falling “through the cracks when they are so vulnerable”.
The risk of suicide is highest on the second and third days after leaving a mental health ward, but 37,999 follow-up appointments with patients were not made within this timeframe in England between April 2020 and May 2022.
Full story in The Guardian, 22 August 2022