Further supplementary memorandum from
the Ministry of Defence
During the evidence session on 27 November
the Committee asked my Department to provide information on the
throughput of cases of Service personnel being treated at the
Priory, and how many were subsequently discharged from the Services.
In July 2006 the MoD carried out a one-off
snapshot on the long-term outcomes of Service patients admitted
to the Priory hospitals between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2005.
This exercise looked at the cases of some 260 Service patients
who were admitted as in-patients under our contract with the Priory
Group in that year. Of these, around 65% returned to work and
35% had been discharged by July 2006. Of those discharged, slightly
more than half were medically discharged. The rest were discharged
either as temperamentally unsuitable, by premature voluntary release
or by other means, for example, at the end of engagement.
The MoD is currently developing systems
that will enable us to have much better visibility of clinical
outcomes as a matter of routine in the future. In January 2007
the Defence Analytical Services Agency (DASA) began collecting
information on patients who had attended a Department of Community
Mental Health facility (DCMH) and patients admitted to the Priory
as in-patients. The data so far collected is too recent to allow
us to draw meaningful conclusions as to clinical outcomes and
relationship to discharge data.
I would also like to take this opportunity
to clarify how we provide mental health services to our serving
personnel and to rectify any potential confusion about the provision
of mental health care in the community. The MoD's own mental health
services are configured to provide community-based mental health
care in line with national best practice. We do this by providing
outpatient assessment and treatment at our military regional Departments
of Community Mental Health (DCMH) centres sited in military bases
with care provided by either military mental health care professionals
or civilians employed by the MoD. This means that serving personnel
usually remain with their units and receive outpatient care in
a military environment. This means that serving personnel have
no need to, and do not, receive outpatient care via the NHS in
a civilian community environment.
In-patient care, when necessary for acute
serving personnel cases, is provided through our contract with
the Priory Group in dedicated regional psychiatric units. Close
liaison is maintained between local DCMHs and the Priory units
to ensure that all Service elements relating to an in-patient
care and management are addressed. The arrangements with the Priory
Group mean that the majority of our patients can be treated much
closer to their parent units than was the case when we maintained
the last of our own psychiatric hospitals.
Derek Twigg MP
15 December 2007
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