In a press release dated 21 March 2018 the British Psychological Society detailed findings from the 2017 New Savoy Conference Workplace Wellbeing Survey, which published Wednesday 21 March 2018.
"Almost three-quarters of mental health professionals questioned in a national survey say they do not believe the service in which they work has enough staff to operate safely and effectively."
"One in three respondents say that their service had lost senior staff and that this had contributed to a loss of confidence." "Fewer professionals than in previous years report feelings of depression or failure, but those feelings remain present in over 40 per cent of respondents. Experiences of bullying and harassment and staff feeling under pressure to meet unrealistic targets are on the increase. "
The picture of fragmenting mental health services continues to build with human costs to staff well-being and mental health, and ultimately costs to service user care. Staff have become service users themselves through experiencing burnout from striving to plug the gaps in services due to lack of funding and lack of parity with physical health services.
This systemic failure stems from the highest levels 'overseeing' health systems - the Government. The services fragment, the staff fragment and the service users fragment.
This is now a safety and risk issue. Hence the work with Unite by some professional mental health workers to voice up in desperation to get mental health systems properly funded and protected. This, and other aims to increase the psychological safety of teams working in mental health systems, will start to go some way to help contain the crisis.
BPS Press release here