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Issues - Self harm - Epidemic
Britain is facing a spiralling epidemic of self-harm, shocking
new figures indicate. More than 170,000 people a year - most
of them teenagers and young adults - seek hospital treatment
after deliberately hurting themselves in apparent expressions
of despair, research has found.
The disturbing trend is exposed by figures collated by the
Government's drugs and treatment assessment body, the National
Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice). It is the first
time such figures have been compiled and highlights mounting
concern over the rising numbers of young people turning to
self-harm, in which they cut, burn or mutilate themselves
in an attempt to relieve mental anguish. When experts examined
the number of total years of life lost due to different conditions,
self-harm and suicide was third only to heart disease and
cancer.
Experts warned that the true picture was much worse even than
the figures indicated, and that many hundreds of thousands
more may be self-harming but failing to seek treatment.
While the rise in suicide has been well documented, the growing
problem of self-harm remains a taboo subject within the health
service. In an attempt to break that taboo Nice is tomorrow
to release new guidelines for the treatment of people who
self-harm.
The figures emerged as a damning report was published into
the death of 22-year-old Sarah Lawson, who had a history of
severe mental health problems and self-harming. Sarah was
given an overdose by her father, James, after she was thrown
out of a psychiatric unit at the end of a week in which she
had tried to kill herself three times.
Mr Lawson took the agonising decision to help his daughter
die after the family was driven to the brink by the lack of
help available to her. The independent review of her case
condemned the mental health services as dysfunctional, fragmented
and patchy and said Sarah had been failed by the system.
Mental health campaigners say the case highlights the alarming
lack of care available to the hundreds of thousands of young
people who harm themselves. Marjorie Wallace, chief executive
of the mental health charity Sane, said: "This really
has become an epidemic and the way in which people who self-harm
are treated is a national scandal. These are people who are
pushed to the bottom of the treatment queue, made to feel
it is their own fault and denied any real understanding of
their condition."
She added: "The problem is spreading. We are not just
talking about young girls cutting themselves any more: we
have heard of young men gauging their flesh, drinking acid,
removing genitalia. These are people in desperate need of
help and we are punishing rather than treating them."
Tomorrow's report is the first effort by Nice to estimate
the scale of the self-harm problem in Britain. A recent survey
found that 13 per cent of all 15 and 16 year-olds had self-harmed
at some point in their lives, and that 7 per cent had done
so in the past year.
Dr Tim Kendall, co-director of the National Collaborating
Centre for Mental Health, which has helped to draw up the
treatment guidelines, said: "The 170,000 a year who attend
A&E are really the tip of the iceberg. They are probably
mainly people who have taken overdoses, but there are many,
many more who may be cutting themselves or harming in other
ways who do not go to hospital but try to patch themselves
up.
"Even the people who attend hospital are not being treated
in the way they should be, because there is not enough understanding
of their problems. In some parts of the country, the treatment
they receive is appalling. We have heard of people who have
turned up at A&E having cut themselves, and are stitched
up without anaesthetic by nurses who tell them that they cut
themselves without anaesthetic, so why should they get it
now?"
Half of the people who attend A&E after self-harming are
sent away without any psychological assessment or follow-up.
"These are people who have often been abused or neglected
and have very serious problems, yet we are just patching them
up and sending them away," Dr Kendall said.
SOURCE: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=545105
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