Mental health services in crisis are abandoning patients to meet targets

Mental health services in crisis are abandoning patients to meet targets | Jay Watts Vulnerable patients are being ‘off-rolled’ at a rate unheard of five years ago, thanks to the relentless focus on outcome

Off-rolling has recently become a buzzword in the world of education. It refers to the removal, by various means, of students from schools’ records who are deemed too complicated or who don’t make the statistics look good. However, it’s not just education. Off-rolling is common in mental health services and disproportionally affects those most vulnerable and marginalised.

Off-rolling takes three main forms. The first is prematurely discharging patients from secondary mental health services such as community mental health teams. Traditionally, one could expect better care if one had moderate to severe mental health difficulties, as opposed to mild problems, as funding was based on clinical need. However the relentless obsession with targets and outcome privileges services that give good optics.

Patients can find their behaviour framed as attention-seeking or manipulative, based more on discrimination than fact. The Guardian