An average of two people a day are being admitted to Blackpool Victoria Hospital after taking life-threatening overdoses, it has emerged. More people arrived at A&E suffering from a mental health crisis in Blackpool than anywhere else last year. Medics in casualty helped care for an average of 29 such patients every day last year, figures obtained by a think tank have shown.
An average of two people every day were admitted to hospital after taking ‘high lethality’ overdoses, while 1,613 people showed a ‘moderate’ risk of self-harm. A smaller number of 401 showed signs of hurting others. Parliament Street, which collated the figures through a series of requests under freedom of information laws, said they ‘draw a devastating picture of the number of people suffering from a mental health crisis ending up in A&E’. And Lancashire GP Dr David Wrigley, who is the British Medical Association Council’s deputy chairman, said: “Over the years, mental health services have suffered huge cuts to its budget and we have seen waiting times increase for many patients.” The town’s transient population, poverty levels, and troubles with drugs and booze, have also been blamed.
Full story in The Blackpool Gazette, 30 May 2017