High-Security Hospitals: Scientist attacks 'gutless' mental health policy

A leading scientist has attacked the Government for its "ignorant" and intellectually dishonest record on mental health policy.

Lewis Wolpert, Professor of Biology at University College London, said at least 50 MPs would have suffered depression but not one "has the guts to stand up and talk about it".

"The Government are either totally ignorant or intellectually dishonest. It's all about spin for them, and I find that nauseating," said the broadcaster, a self-confessed depressive and user of the anti-depressant Seroxat.

Last week, The Independent on Sunday revealed that more than 400 patients in Britain's high security mental hospitals should have been released years ago but remain locked up because beds cannot be found for them outside.

The paper is campaigning for the transfer of these people to accommodation where they can be treated properly. Some forgotten prisoners have languished in places such as Broadmoor, Ashworth and Rampton for more than 20 years.

Our campaign is backed by senior politicians, mental health campaigners and other high-profile public figures who have experience of mental illness.

There are already more than 2,000 medium secure beds in NHS units across the country but most are already occupied. The Government has pledged £25m for a further 200 such beds, allowing patients to move out of high security psychiatric hospitals.

Health authorities have been ordered to complete the transfer of eligible patients by 2004. However, the Department of Health has acknowledged there are difficulties in moving inappropriately placed patients out of high security hospitals.

Health authorities have to foot the bill for these existing 2,000 secure beds and are reluctant to spend their already tight budgets on mental health provision.

Meanwhile, these patients on the transfer lists of Broadmoor, Ashworth and Rampton are occupying beds which should be given to mentally ill prisoners. There are no official figures on how many prisoners should be in secure hospitals but there are more than 5,000 mentally ill people at any one time held in prison.

One case that highlights the plight of patients held in secure hospitals is that of Janet Cresswell, a writer who has been held in Broadmoor for more than 20 years.

Her word processor was confiscated under a Home Office ban on patients in secure hospitals owning computers, after internet abuse. The draconian measure was imposed after male inmates at Ashworth hospital on Merseyside were found downloading internet pornography.

Joan Smith, chair of the Writers in Prison Committee and a columnist for this newspaper, said Ms Cresswell's case was particularly disturbing:

"She appears to have been punished for somebody else's misdemeanors and denied a basic human right. If you've taken away someone's liberty, one of the few things they have left is freedom of thought and expression," Ms Smith said. "For many people in prison, writing is one of the most important things that they can do."

Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat health spokesman and a former junior hospital doctor, said that mental health patients were "the lowest priority of the lowest priority".

"There are people in Broadmoor and Ashworth who need not be there who could be in medium secure accommodation," said the MP.

"Health authority beds are not centrally funded – they are expensive and they don't have the resources to fund them. Women are particularly badly affected."

Lord Avebury, Liberal Democrat peer and leading campaigner on human rights, has written to both the Home Office and the Department of Health to demand action.

"We may have provided extra beds but they are being occupied by these people who need to be transferred," he said.

"The situation is still as bad as ever. And if you increase the size of the prison population then you are going to get more psychiatric patients."