The chair of the coronavirus hearings faces calls to explain when he will investigate the impact of the pandemic on mental health.
The issue comes after the chair of the inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett, was accused of making a “U-turn” on the issue.
Mental health charity Mind is investigating how the pandemic has affected health systems, patients and healthcare workers to examine the impact on wider mental health services, not just children’s inpatient psychiatric care. They called for a module 3 to consider.
After consideration, Lady Hallett ruled that part of the inquiry “could not, within the broad interim scope and available hearing time, include the question of the impact of the pandemic on adult mental health services”. made a ruling.
Speaking at a preliminary hearing for Module 3 in London on Wednesday, Mind’s legal director Leanne Davies said there had been a number of “predictable” mental health issues during the crisis. There appears to have been no public mental health plan,” he added. to address predictable health issues in these populations. why? And I have a perfectly appropriate question to investigate for this study. ”
She said the government’s response to unpredictable mental health issues was “failure to learn lessons and fail to intervene”.
Mr Davies also pointed to issues that have arisen in mental health inpatient and community services, including patients being “locked in their rooms for five days at a time” and “denied access to showers”.
“Could this have been handled better? Could this have been done differently? We say these are perfectly appropriate questions to be answered in this investigation,” she said.
“We want the coronavirus inquiry to be successful, as its legacy is a tired tradition of excluding people with mental health problems because it is easier to exclude them. I hope this will be a positive investigation that breaks the ice,” Ms. Davis said.
Adam Straw, representing John’s Campaign and Patients’ Association, also called for clarity on when the impact on mental health would be investigated.
“It is not clear which module will consider this important issue or why it does not fit into this module,” he said.
At the end of the hearing, Mrs Hallett said: “Just because an issue is not included in a particular module does not mean it will not be considered at all in the investigation.”
“Do not assume that just because you don’t see the explicit words ‘X, Y, Z’ is a specific module that means X, Y, Z is not considered.”
The ruling comes after Mind Rethinking Mental Illness, Mental Health Centers, Associations of Mental Health Providers and other organizations urged Mrs. Hallett to reconsider her sentence.
An open letter shared with the PA news agency said the “refusal” to investigate the impact of the pandemic on mental health meant that “people with pre-existing mental health conditions died at five times the rate of the general population”. There is a danger of disappointing expectations.”
The investigative reporter, Lady Hallett, said: “The inquiry will target the impact of the pandemic on people’s mental health through our research, including Module 3, and our listening exercise ‘Every Story Matters’ across the UK. “I explained that,” he said.
Meanwhile, at the preliminary hearing, lawyers also raised concerns about so-called “Spotlight Hospitals,” facilities chosen to assist investigations in gathering evidence about the effects of the coronavirus.
The survey sent a request to 22 hospitals across the country to assess what measures have been taken and the challenges hospitals are facing in response to the virus.
However, Pete Weatherby, head of the Covid-19 Survivors’ Association for Justice, said he understood the inquiry’s approach and plans to “distribute evidence from all over the UK”, but added that He urged “further consideration” on this point. “Major Issues”.
He pointed out that in Northern Ireland, hospitals are located in major cities but not in selected rural areas, whereas in Wales hospitals are located in the south, and Mr Wetherby said: “The medical experience of other parts of the country is They are being excluded.”
Aswini Weeratne, Justice Shimuru’s Covid-19 families representative, said of the selected Welsh hospitals: “Wide areas of Wales, including the rest of South Wales, North Wales and rural areas, are affected by this selection. It’s not targeted.”
“The purpose of the spotlight is not to identify the hospitals most severely affected by the pandemic,” said Jacqueline Carey, lead attorney for Investigation Module 3.
“Nor did it involve testing country by country, region by region, hospital by hospital. This is not, and never has been, a comparison exercise to compare the response of one hospital to another. I don’t get it.”
