Mental healthcare - Conditions remain appalling

It is 22 years since the almost Dickensian conditions of mentally-ill patients were identified as being in radical need of an overhaul.

In the intervening years, practically nothing has changed and a policy document, Planning for the Future, may as well never have been committed to paper, as so little has been the cognisance given to the fundamental improvement it envisaged.

What has been outlined in the annual report for last year by the Mental Health Commission and Inspector of Mental Health Services is an appalling indictment of the lack attention mental healthcare has received by successive governments.