Clarification of missing data on Out of County Mental Health Patients in Private Institutions

C Harrison made this Freedom of Information request to Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

C Harrison
Delivered

Dear Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust,

Question 1.
I sent a request to KMPT dated 26 February asking you:
How many K&M NHS Mental Health patients whose needs could not be met by
local mental health services provided by KMPT were referred to CCG's for placement:
a. in 2016?
b. in 2017?
c. in 2018?

However the reply to my request for information from KMPT dated 20th March stated
"This information would need to be requested from the CCG’s ..."

However in Q 3 of my request for information dated 16th January from NHS South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) I asked:

How many referrals for 'specialist placements' for K&M (NHS) Mental Health
patients were made to the CCG:
a. in 2016?
b. in 2017?
c. in 2018?

and in the reply dated 7 Mary 2019 stated that

"I can confirm NHS South Kent Coast CCG does not hold this information. I can confirm no
referrals were made to the CCG, as this is a clinical decision made by the provider not the
CCG. You may wish to redirect this part of your request to Kent and Medway NHS.

It appears that perhaps no one does collect - or no one publishes - this highly important data on service provision and scrutiny of expenditure on mental health patients within the private sector. It has been stated publicly that KMPT reduced the number of 'Out of County' placements to zero. As we are aware - for fact - that there are some placements out of county (including some very long term placements) it appears that perhaps these are reflected in the 'missing data'.

Please could you advise why no one appears to produce this data ? Or if they do please tell me where I can find it.

Question 2.
Does KMPT have an overall figure for the number of 'Out-of-County' Mental Health placements from KMPT there are in private institutions who have been placed in any type of bed you may refer to ... specialist, acute or other ? If not please tell me where I can find out these numbers for
a. 2016
b. 2017
c. 2018
d. CURRENT figures as of the date of this request

Thank you for your attention in this matter. Please note I will also be posting a similar FOI to the CCG asking for clarification.

Yours faithfully,

C Harrison

Link to this Report