by Felicity Collier

MORE cash is urgently needed to improve mental health services, nurses warned yesterday in the wake of a damning Care Quality Commission report.

The CQC health watchdog found that 25 per cent of core mental health services in England need to improve, warning that a 12 per cent fall in the number of mental health nurses since 2010 had affected patient care.

Union Unite’s Mental Health Nurses Association section warned that staff shortages put nurses at risk of burnout and staff were now too stretched to provide patients with one-to-one care.

The union said that if the number of nurses had grown in line with the population from 2010, today’s figure is 19 per cent lower than what it would be.

The lack of care caused a 26 per cent rise in detentions under the Mental Health Act from 2012-13 to 2015-16.

The CQC found that a “significant number” of patients were cared for in “locked rehabilitation wards” who could have been cared for in different settings, with some spending more than four years in the facilities, two-thirds of which are run by independent care providers.

The health watchdog said: “We do not consider that this model of care has a place in today’s mental health care system.”

Unite national officer Dave Munday said: “It is deeply ironic that both Theresa May and her predecessor David Cameron have expressed strong support for mental health services, which provide vital help to thousands in distress every day, but the necessary funding is not in place.

“Nurses in both the NHS and independent sector are very clearly holding the service together. Without their dedication there is a very serious chance that things will collapse, but many are now at risk of burning out.”

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth described CQC findings as “a serious wake-up call” with “patients failed and services neglected.”

He also called for mental health to be given equal priority with physical health.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We know there is more to do to promise everyone the very highest standards of care — that’s why we are undertaking probably the most widespread programme of mental health transformation in Europe, supported by our rigorous inspection regime and £1 billion more investment for mental health by 2020.”