Hundreds of children 'detained in police cells'

By Nicola BeckfordBBC Radio 4, the World This Weekend

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There were more than 300 child detentions in each of the last three years

Hundreds of children in England and Wales have been held under the Mental Health Act and locked in police cells because officers did not have anywhere else to take them, the BBC has learned.

There were 305 detentions of under-18s in the first 11 months of 2013, Radio 4's the World This Weekend found.

Some were detained for more than 24 hours, according to data released under Freedom of Information laws.

Health Minister Norman Lamb said the level of cell use was "unacceptable".

He insisted every area should have arrangements and agreements in place, and police cells should only be used in "very, very exceptional circumstances".

The practice of detaining children suspected of being mentally ill was first uncovered by the BBC in 2012.

Then, the data for 2011 showed there were 385 child detentions.

The latest information revealed that in 2012 there were 317 detentions.

'Shocking'

Some children were detained for long periods of time - including 17-year-olds held for more than 24 hours and 15-year-olds for between eight and 15 hours.

A 10-year-old in Gwent was taken to a cell as no bed was available.

Police have the power under the Mental Health Act to take people they suspect of being mentally disturbed and who could be a danger to themselves or others to a "place of safety" to be assessed by a doctor.

This detention may only last up to 72 hours.

Places of safety will usually mean a hospital, care home or any other suitable place but, in exceptional circumstances, it may also be a police station.

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In the case of children, this could mean an adolescent psychiatric unit or a children's home.

Sarah Brennan, chief executive of charity Young Minds, described the situation as "really shocking".

"[Children and young people] need to have appropriate care in the appropriate setting and that should never be a police cell when they have mental health problems."

The fact children were still being held in cells two years after it was first reported was a "terrible indictment", she added.

Mr Lamb insisted it was possible to stop using police cells, saying some parts of the country needed to "step up" to the standards as those areas which do not use them, while proper coordination and collaboration of services was paramount.

"We need to have very clear standards of crisis mental health care," he told the BBC.

The Department of Health also said it was trialling two schemes to tackle the issue.

Under its "street triage" scheme, mental health nurses patrol with the police to identify people who need immediate mental health support.

An extra £25m had been made available for mental health workers to be based in police stations and courts, the department said.

'Got to change'

The Association of Chief Police Officers welcomed the move, but the association's spokesman on mental health said more needed to be done.

"We were in a position where there was every day at least one young person statistically taken to a police cell," said Chief Constable Simon Cole.

"We're now down to less than one person a day as an average. Has it changed quickly enough and significantly enough? No it hasn't, and I want that change to be quicker.

"I'm a father myself and the thought that either of my kids were ill and that they finished up in a police cell, I regard as abhorrent."

So-called places of safety were, in many parts of the country, not equipped to take on young people, he said, adding: "That's just got to change."

Lorraine Khan from the Centre for Mental Health said the figures were "hugely disappointing".

"The government is currently reviewing the code of practice for the Mental Health Act and should look at ways this could help to stop children being placed in police custody when they should be in a safe hospital environment."

Professor Sue Bailey of the Royal College of Psychiatrists welcomed the government's commitment to mental health but said the pace of change needed to quicken.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25900085

Mental health: Ysbyty Gwynedd's Hergest Unit could lose beds

By Chris DeardenBBC Wales News

Staff at the Hergest Unit at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor, have criticised plans to cut the number of beds

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Some beds at a mental health unit in Bangor could temporarily close to try and deal with concerns over the way patients are treated.

Staff at Ysbyty Gwynedd's Hergest Unit have criticised the plans, blaming problems on managers.

Last year, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) identified low staff morale and other issues in a surprise visit.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) said fewer beds would help it address some of the issues.

Health service regulator HIW made a surprise visit to the 42-bed Hergest Unit at the end of last year.

Its report criticised low staff morale, poor professional relationships, safety issues, concerns over mixing mentally-ill patients with frail elderly ones, and the need for single sex wards.

It said: "Relationships between some responsible clinicians and some nursing staff was very poor with staff not talking to each other.

"In addition, some nursing staff were not talking to other nursing staff. The lack of communication and behaviour amongst professionals is unacceptable and must be resolved."

It also pointed out that there was "a lack of training in some key areas across all wards, specifically fire safety and basic life support".

Another criticism concerned a lack of privacy and dignity for patients.

'Urgent review'

"There are multi-occupancy rooms and the bathrooms are shared between the patients on that ward. There were limited designated male and female facilities," the report said.

"An urgent review of the environment is required."

In response, BCUHB has proposed temporarily reducing the number of beds.

It said the change would "support improved nurse-to-patient ratios, facilitate more appropriate separation of males and females, and also provide for separation of frail older mental health patients and adult mental health patients".

But doctors at the Hergest Unit said the changes would make patients less safe.

They also say it could mean patients being transferred to the mental health unit at Glan Clwyd hospital in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, which is currently under police investigation after one ward there was closed last month.

The doctors suggested an extra ward could be opened at the Hergest Unit to deal with the problems instead.

The changes are being discussed at a meeting on Thursday at 10:00 GMT at Wrexham's Maelor hospital.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-25827572

So comedians are prone to psychosis? Comedy is more complex than that

Research published on Friday suggests that many comedians display signs of psychosis. This may well be a generalisation of what is a complex, diverse and little understood field – and by that, I mean comedy

Overgeneralising the term 'comedian' is misleading, because even clowns could be included. Photograph: Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

I first did stand-up comedy in 2004. I’d always enjoyed making people laugh, which led me to take part in numerous comedy plays and the like in school and university. I never had the nerve to try stand-up though, I simply wasn’t brave enough.

Then I spent 18 months embalming dead people for a medical school, which really does tend to alter your standards when it comes to things you’re able/willing to tolerate, so I opted to give stand-up a go. What was the worst that could happen: I’d end up in a room full of people not laughing at me? I spend every day in a room full of people not laughing at me, at least these ones will still be breathing and have all their organs on the inside.

I signed up to do a brief five-minute set at a local open-mic night in Cardiff. The gig itself was a fun regular night but based in a pub in the rougher side of town with a regular clientele who would probably be given their own definitely-not-exploitative Channel 4 show if a producer had wandered in. I was meant to be the newbie in the middle, but on the night all the other acts cancelled so I was promoted to headliner, which was nice. It went surprisingly well, all things considered. Afterwards, when telling friends and family what I’d done, the most common response was “you must be mad”.

According to research published today, this is true. A study revealed that, when asked to fill in a questionnaire that looks into psychotic characteristics in “healthy” people, comedians scored “significantly higher on all four types of psychotic personality traits” when compared with the scores of actors and “non-creative” occupations. This obviously results in a number of speculations as to how elements of psychosis are useful for the creative process, how elements of madness make it easier to entertain a crowd etc.

It would be easy to critique the report(s) by emphasising how science and psychology are more complicated than that, as is my usual response, but ignoring the potential problems with self-assessment, the fact that psychotic traits can be normally distributed in the population and other issues, I thought it might be useful to critique science’s understanding of comedy for a change. As that rare thing, a neuroscientist/psychiatry lecturer with a decade of stand-up experience, I'm probably well placed to comment.

Most scientific studies into comedy/humour suffer from the fact that the researchers have their own definition of what comedy is, and many would disagree with this definition. Many comedians (myself included) have grumbled about the lumping together of all who do funny things for an audience as “comedians”; it’s an incredibly diverse and varied art form where everyone has their own techniques and style (apart from the gag thieves) and assuming all who do it are the same and therefore comparable does nobody any favours. If a known fan of classical jazz went to a punk concert and complained that the music was crap, their motives and self-awareness would be questioned. But comedians regularly get criticised by people based on nothing more than their own preferences, as if they’re somehow responsible for this. So lumping together 523 comedians together in the study may not be as useful as is implied.

Comedians are also compared to actors, presumably on the grounds that both perform for audiences. But acting and comedy are very different crafts; actors typically have to learn other people’s work, perform very precise actions, and rarely acknowledge the audience. Comedians typically have to write their own material and very much respond to the audience, which requires a different skill set entirely. So it may not be a logical comparison after all, but then no more than the blanket label of “comedian”.

The one individual cited in the report is Spike Milligan, comedy hero andmanic-depressive. But Milligan was a writer/actor/performer, not so much a stand-up, which is what many people think of when you say “comedian”. And as anyone who has read his war diaries could tell you, it’s implied that his depression and mental issues stem from his wounding in WWII, whereas he seems to have been a popular comedic personality before this point.

This also links to questions of cause and effect. The study cites “successful” comedians, presumably focussing on those who at least make a living from performing comedy, so they must be very experienced at it. But as has been pointed out often, doing anything often enough will result in your brain altering as it gets better at this task. Regularly writing jokes and amusing anecdotes that nobody has yet come up with in an increasingly crowded comedy marketplace will probably give rise to a tendency for divergent thinking, something also seen in psychosis. Could it be comedy that gives rise to signs of psychosis, rather than the other way around?

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/jan/16/comedians-psychosis-comedy

Bedroom tax loophole could exempt 40,000 wrongly identified as liable

Housing benefit experts condemn 'shambles' as it emerges that DWP oversight could mean some actually profit from blunder

The bedroom tax loophole applies to working-age social housing tenants who are entitled to housing benefit. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Thousands of people have been wrongly identified as liable for thebedroom tax, including some who now face eviction or have been forced to move to a smaller property, as a result of an error by Department of Work and Pensions.

Housing experts believe as many as 40,000 people could be affected by the mistake. The DWP says it believes only a "small number" of tenants are affected, which it estimates number 5,000.

All could be eligible for refunds worth on average at least £640 per claimant and millions in aggregate.

The error affects working age tenants in social housing who have occupied the same home continuously since 1996. An oversight by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) when drafting the legislation means that the housing benefit regulations dating from 1996 were not updated when the coalition legislated for the bedroom tax.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/09/bedroom-tax-loophole-exempt-liable-housing-benefit

Cyberbullying contacts to Childline up by 87%

Concerns about online bullying rose by 87% in the year since 2011/12 according to Childline's latest report, while depression and unhappiness have become the most common reason for contacting the charity

Counselling for online bullying rose by 87% in 2012/13 according to Childline's latest report. Photograph: Alamy

More than 35,900 young people contacted Childline in 2012/13 aboutdepression and unhappiness, according to the charity's annual report, which also saw a sharp rise in the number of children suffering from cyberbullying.

278,886 children and young people were counselled by Childline in 2012/13, while a further 10,961 young people contacted them with concerns about another child. The charity found that for the first time ever, more counselling took place online, via one to one chats or email (59%) than by telephone (41%).

Depression and unhappiness were the most common reason stipulated by young people contacting the charity. More than half of all contacts about depression and unhappiness came from girls. The issue was also the top reason girls sought help from Childline while for boys bullying and online bullying were the most common cause of concern.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/jan/09/cyberbullying-childline-statistics-online-bullying