A LEADING mental health officer has launched a stinging attack on the NHS's "cinderella" psychiatric services.

Krys Wiczkowska, who has quit Blackburn with Darwen NHS Primary Care Trust, said red tape and low investment were letting patients down.

And she said patients were being given too many anti-depressant tablets instead of face-to-face help.

The PCT said more work needed to be done - but said "unprecedented" investment had improved people's lives.

Miss Wiczkowska, part of a team set up to put in place Government policy on mental health, said: "I feel that the population do not get the services they deserve. The whole system is run by managers endlessly debating and drafting hopeless policies and procedures, obsessing about pointless targets, creating senseless visions, mission statements and initiatives in a demotivated workforce."

Miss Wiczkowska spent three years at the Blackburn and Darwen PCT working to implement the Government's "national service framework" for mental health.

But she said the way services were planned were "truly terrible".

Primary Care Trusts decide what type and amount of services should be provided. The majority of these are carried out by Lancashire Care Trust, the county's NHS mental authority.

But she said there were "lots and meetings and reports" between the PCT and these providers but "very little for the patient" in the end.

Miss Wiczkowska, 56, said more cash was needed but she said: "Nowhere is this more important than the Cinderella services for mental health which touch everybody but which are always the first to get cut."

The care Trust, set up in 2002, was the county's first ever dedicated mental health authority. The PCT is one of the lowest spenders on mental health in England, a major study published in August found.

The borough was ranked 225 out of 303 areas, according to the King's Fund, also placing it below the rest of East Lancs.

But Miss Wiczkowska, of Prestwich, Manchester said: "Vulnerable people are likely to receive inadequate support at home from overworked teams in the community trying to do their best in very difficult circumstances."

A PCT boss said mental health services "have been and continue to be a priority for the PCT" and the last five years had seen "unprecedented additional investment".

Janet Ledward, director of commissioning for Blackburn with Darwen Primary Care Trust, said: "This has all been new money, not as a result of closures or cut backs elsewhere in mental health services."

But she said: "We are not complacent and know there is more to do."