Safer Care Means Better Care

If you or someone you love is admitted to hospital for mental health care, they should be kept safe. But for too many people, this isn't the reality. We are campaigning for safer care in mental health settings because the system is too often failing the very people it is there to support. 

For decades, families, carers and people with lived experience have raised the alarm. Inquests, investigations and reviews have repeatedly highlighted the same issues, including poor communication with families, unclear and inconsistent risk assessments, and serious gaps in how care is coordinated.

These problems are not inevitable. With the right workforce, clear accountability and a culture rooted in dignity and respect, inpatient settings can be places of safety and recovery – where patients, families and carers feel supported and involved in their care. 

Too often, people in crisis are cared for in stretched and under-resourced environments. Staff often work tirelessly with dedication and compassion, but the system makes it much harder to provide safe, supportive care. Heavy reliance on agency staff disrupts continuity of care and makes it difficult for individuals and families to build the trusting and therapeutic relationships that support recovery. 

Take action: add your name to support safer care.

To create safe and therapeutic inpatient environments, we need a properly trained and managed workforce from front line staff to those managing whole NHS Trusts. They should be held accountable and operate on the basis of up to date, clear, helpful guidance and legislation.  

Better and safer care depends on understanding the individual, changing needs of patients. Yet risk assessments are often unclear, not regularly updated, or shared between teams. Key information can be lost during handovers between shifts or teams.  Transitions, including admission, discharge, or moving to another ward are high-risk moments that often lack proper planning and coordination. 

Out-of-area placements (sending patients far from home due to a lack of local beds) remains a serious and persistent problem, as it cuts people off from their support networks and makes it much harder for families and carers to stay involved in their loved ones’ care. 

There are also cultural challenges. In some settings, the focus is on managing immediate risk rather than creating a genuinely therapeutic environment. Restrictive practices continue to be readily used, rather than as a last resort, and people, families and carers do not always feel listened to, or involved in decisions.

Despite decades of recommendations, there is still no clear, national system to track whether safety improvements are implemented, or whether they are making a difference. Reports are published, lessons are shared, but this has not translated into meaningful change. 

This must change. We are calling for:  

• A national register of safety recommendations
• Improved communication with carers and families
• More permanent and skilled mental health staff
• An end to inappropriate out-of-area placements.

Better care means safer care: safer for patients, safer for staff, and safer for the public.

Take action today

Add your name today to support safer mental health care. Over the coming months, we'll be pushing for improvements to inpatient mental health care and updating you on ways to get involved.