PMQs: NHS Mental healthcare shortages left vulnerable young woman with MRSA and open wounds in private ward

A shocking indictment of mental healthcare failings and farming out mental health patients to private hospitals emerged in PMQs today, as Louise Haigh asked about a damning report into mental health services in her Sheffield constituency.

The MP for Sheffield, Heeley, revealed that a young constituent affected by mental healthcare shortages had been discovered placed in a private ward with “MRSA with open wounds.”

Prime Minister’s Questions heard from the Labour MP that:

“NHS England commission child and adult mental health beds in a private hospital in my constituency which recently received a damming CQC report. The CQC found the hospital was unsafe not least because on inspection they found a young woman with MRSA with open wounds on a ward. Does the Prime Minister share my concern that a shortage of mental health beds risks the NHS placing very vulnerable young people in unsafe environments?

“And will she consider giving NHS England the responsibility and the resources to investigate the quality of care before they commission?”

“We are boosting the funding that is going into mental health,” responded Theresa May, “we are taking a number of steps to improve mental health,” adding that the Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt would look into the case that the Labour MP had revealed.

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