Wolverhampton is today ranked last in a national survey of mental health care because somebody pushed the wrong button on a computer 11 months ago.
This meant data arrived late for the Healthcare Commission’s (HCC) review resulting in the city’s Primary Care Trust being automatically given the lowest possible mark in almost half of the 58 different catagories being considered.
The Commission refused to include any of the correct information when it was finally sent after the mistake was spotted three days later and have rejected two appeals to reconsider the ruling.
Angry officials insist the proper marks would have put Wolverhampton near the middle rather than at the bottom of the primary care trust league table. It has been a different story for other mental health providers across the Black Country and Staffordshire with Dudley ranked joint top in the country and given a rating of excellent.
South Staffordshire was also near the top of the table with services in Sandwell and Walsall described as fair.
Wendy Pugh, clinical services director for Dudley PCT, said: “We are delighted that services provided in Dudley have been recognised and it is testament to the hard work and dedication of all our staff.” In Wolverhampton the vital details were not entered on time because a member of staff pushed the ’save’ button instead of the one marked ’send’ when dispatching the information.
The blunder was not spotted until the following Monday morning because neither the Primary Care Trust (PCT) nor the Healthcare Commission work over the weekend and by then the deadline for submission of the data had expired.
Jon Crockett of Wolverhampton PCT confessed: “It is disappointing the HCC has refused to accept the information we have on the quality of our services.
“As a result of this the people of Wolverhampton are not being presented with an accurate picture of the standard of mental health servies provided in the city,” he added. “We accept that we made an administrative error in submitting some of the required data a few hours late. What is difficult to understand is why the HCC has turned down our repeated appeals to include this data, which it accepts would have improved our ranking,” he added.
The review covered mental health care for adults aged between 18 and 64 in acute inpatient mental health wards and psychiatric intensive care units during 2006/07.
Wolverhampton South West MP Rob Marris sprang to the defence of mental health services in Wolverhampton today.
“I pay tribute to the staff and remain confident of the high quality of NHS provision to the people of Wolverhampton,” said Mr Marris.
9 Comments
Why does this matter so much? League tables are often mis-representations anyway, so I suggest that Wolverhampton’s Primary Care Trust publish their figures in the local Express & Star newspaper along with the Healthcare Commission’s figures and let us all see how Wolverhampton faired in the league table!
Only in Wolverhampton do you expect to see such mistakes- no wonder we are the laughing stock throughout the country and will always remain so, wolverhampton and the black country are finished…will the last decent person to leave please turn the lights off
2. Seriously mate, why the downer about wolves, its a great place to live. Sure its got its problems, but so has everywhere else, many with alot worse. Pessimistic Wulfrunian would be more apt I feel
On the issue of league tables, they are manipulated to produce what people want to see. As the old saying goes, 87% of statistics are made up
Wolverhampton deserves to be at the bottom of the mental health league. Staff don’t talk to you. Penn hospitals design makes it unsafe for patients (ie you could be attacked and no-one would know, as only staff carry alarms and you cant see whats happening the other side of the ward). Street drugs are in regular use on the ward. Home Office sectioned patients (who are therefore deemed to be a risk to the public) are allowed out of the grounds - which is not meant to be the case. Overcrowding is ridiculous (more than one allocated to a bed). I had to sleep in the elderly unit (I am 39) one night then I was allocated a mans room who was on day leave and all his belongings were still in his room. I was sexually harrassed by a man trying to get me into his room, so the staff swapped me with another girl, who also got harrassed. Glaring lights directly above the bed are switched on every 15 minutes so you cant sleep. I could go on…..but maybe Jon Crockett and Rob Marris should find out there facts before defending the state of Wolverhampton Mental Health Services.
Why were these figures submitted so close to the deadline? Surely any sensible person in that position would have been prepared and sent them a few days before the deadline. At least that way someone could have checked with the HCC to make sure they got them OK. Common sense?
Mental health services in Wolves are a joke - h yeah apparently they are easily accessible (NOT!) - staff will speak and work in partnership with other agencies (NOT!) - and they treat their patients really well………….can you see where i’m going with this?
See what poster number 4 said…(Penn is awful)
They quite obviously are aware of the lacking of the PCT (and its ignorance).
The staff there are extremely hard working and turn in a fantastic shift every time regardless of the failings of their masters to support them.
Someone ought to be brought to account for this failure, a big cat not a monkey for a change. Or is Wolverhampton PCT too scared of change and wishes to keep the cream for its redundant cats.
Newbridge Wolf I think you must have mental health issues yourself for thinking Wolverhampton is a great place to live, I can only presume you are related to a councellor or MP
Hmm - so Wolves mental health is low because someone pushed a button? Nope, it’s low because the level of care is awful. My best friend endured years of mistreatment, inept doctors, psychologists who just wrote prescriptions, counsellors who were ‘too busy’ and had to cancel appointments, culminating in a stay in the Victorian Madhouse that is Penn Hospital, where he was threatened with being sedated (against his will) when he was requesting his leaving papers in a calm and polite way. Mental healthcare in Wolverhampton is awful.