Christians Condemn Racism Following Leaked Mental Health Report

Church leaders from Britain's largest umbrella groups have condemned the findings of a leaked report into the treatment of ethnic minorities in mental healthcare.

Black Mental Health UK said that "officials have been working hard to bury the bad news" of the Count Me In Census 2006 report which exposed the debilitating impact discrimination is having on black patients.

"The report which should have been made public in December last year supports the view of experts who have warned that the proposals within the 2006 Mental Health Bill will exacerbate the racism within mental health services," BMH UK has said.

Findings in the report have exposed that the £16milion Health Minister Rosie Winterton committed to the Delivering Race Equality programme set up to address discrimination in mental health services had "absolutely no impact in improving the ethnic inequalities in inpatient care", explains BMH UK.

"Rather, people from African Caribbean background are at a higher than average risk of being sectioned, despite similar rates of mental illness as other ethnic groups."

The shock findings also showed an alarming increase in the compulsory admission of black people from the criminal justice system people from five per cent in 2005 to 12 per cent in 2006.

"The failings of the mental health services and the adverse impact it is having on our communities was the subject of debate at the Church of England general synod this week. It is not just the Black church leaders who have serious are concerns about this problem," said Rev Nezlyn Stirling, who is the mental health lead for the African & Caribbean Evangelical Alliance (ACEA).

The report detailed information on inpatients receiving mental health services and shows "marked differences in the treatment of black patients in the use of seclusion and control and restraint and disproportionate detention rates", Black Mental Health UK said.

The report has led BMH UK to call for questions to be asked in Parliament about how the £16 million is being used to address the overrepresentation of African-Caribbeans in the system, as nearly 30 per cent of the patients surveyed in 2005 were still in hospital in 2006.

The Count Me In annual census is part of the Government's Delivering Race Equality (DRE) Framework for Action programme launched in 2005 to address the virulent racism within mental health services. DRE is the Government's response to the David Bennett Inquiry report.

"This is shocking news and goes to show that services are not responsive to the needs of the community. The Government is just playing lip service to our concerns and this is not acceptable in twenty first century Britain. We all have a stake and we cannot be treated as second rate citizens because of our colour.

"The death of David Bennett should have marked a watershed but sadly it is to the contrary. This raises serious questions as to why not one single recommendation of the report has been considered in the 2006 Bill," said Rev Pedro Emmanuel, chair of the African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance.

Professor Sashi Sashidharan, a panellist on the David Bennett Inquiry, said: "The census is another piece of evidence to show which confirms that there is no change in the discrimination faced by black patients using mental health services. It has been two years since DRE the governments programme to address racism in the services was launched.

"Not even a third of the Community Development Workers that were promised are in place and yet all the money has been spent. The 2006 Bill which is being debated in the House of Lords will definitely worsen the problem and not only increase discrimination but also the terrible treatment black people who use the service are subject to."

"If £16m can be spend on a programme and absolutely nothing has changed serious questions need to be asked. If you ask people in the community who use the services what has changed since the DRE programme they will probably ask you, what programme? Because it hasn't made a bit of difference to their lives."