Mental patient escapes have almost doubled, says report

6:51pm Tuesday 14th August 2007

By Andrew Westbrook

The number of sectioned patients absconding from mental health services has almost doubled in the last year.

St George's Mental Health Trust was unaware of the location of a detained patient 101 times, according to the trust's annual risk management report.

The figure is a dramatic rise from the previous year, when 51 absconders were reported by the trust, which runs Springfield Hospital.

A trust spokesman explained this year's figures, which include cases of patients returning from leave more than 10 minutes late, were skewed by two patients who repeatedly absconded.

However, the extent of absconders was just one of the worrying incidents reported by the trust.

The trust became infamous after the 2004 murder of Putney cyclist Denis Finnegan by paranoid schizophrenic John Barrett, who had been granted an hour's leave by the hospital.

On December 14 last year, hospital staff notified the police that two dangerous patients had escaped from Springfield's secure Shaftesbury Clinic.

The trust's figures also revealed three Wandsworth staff had suffered serious violence, three more had been sexually assaulted and there had been two suspected homicides by patients.

The report also highlighted one case of a member of staff being held hostage in a patient's home.

This involved the member of staff making a routine medication visit, but not being allowed to leave for 15 minutes as the patient blocked the exit.

The number of incidents of a sexual nature has also shot up - from 59 to 116 - but the trust explained the dramatic rise was a result of inappropriate comments now being recorded.

It was not all bad news for the trust, however, as the number of deaths dropped dramatically from 60 to 16, while suicides were more than halved, from 28 to 12.

Peter Houghton, the trust's chief executive, said: "Over the past year, we have encouraged a culture of staff incident reporting since, for an organisation of this size and complexity, our figures were lower than would have been expected.

"Thorough reporting of incidents is considered good practice as it enables organisations to learn and improve.

"We would, therefore, expect to see an increase in the number of incidents reported, while at the same time seeing the number of serious incidents decrease through strategies and action plans."

Mr Houghton said: "The trust is pleased that suicide rates among our patients have continued to fall."