Patients released with no care plan

One in seven mental health patients is not getting the necessary help and support because they do not have a written "care plan", the Government has admitted.

Care plans detail the patient's condition and future needs once they are released into the community, tell them where they can get help, keep them in contact with mental health professionals to review their progress, and give advice about what they should do in an emergency.

But 15 per cent of mental health patients are still being discharged without such a plan. Campaigners claim they are effectively left to fend for themselves. And even where care plans do exist, they insist, there are not the resources or staff to carry them through.

Members of the public, mental health professionals and The Independent on Sunday are all calling for more rights for mental health patients. The Liberal Democrats are now urging the Government to sort out the chaos surrounding the introduction of its mental health legislation and, in line with the IoS campaign, come back with a workable Bill so that the scandal of underfunded, patchy services does not continue.

Paul Marsden, the Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, said: "Ministers don't recognise that mental health patients suffer because of underfunded, 'Cinderella' services."

Health minister Jacqui Smith admitted in a Commons written answer that only 85 per cent of patients were getting a written care plan when they were discharged. She said she expected the rate to "improve with time".

But Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said the care plans often amounted to a "scrap of paper containing a list of dreams and wishes ... I am quite horrified by some of the plans. They are almost childish. But the bigger problem is that they are written on water – they drown in the lack of resources and the availability of trained staff."