CONCERNS have been raised about the number of patients who try to hang themselves on Blackburn and Burnley’s mental health wards.

Confidential national data, seen by the Lancashire Telegraph, said that Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust had 422 patients involved in ‘ligature incidents’ in 2013/14 – and suggested this was the most in England.

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The trust is one of the largest in the country, but was also ranked highest when figures were adjusted for size.

It was ranked third for the total number of ligature incidents, where numerous cases involving the same patient were included.

Trust staff have told the Telegraph a special ‘ligature knife’ is used to cut patients down, and claimed many incidents were not reported, so the true picture may be even worse.

Russ McLean, chairman of the Pennine Lancashire Patient Voices Group, said: “I’m quite alarmed by this and you have to ask why patients are reaching this crisis point, and why objects that might be used as a ligature are not being removed.”

Meanwhile, there has been a rise in reported ligature incidents at Blackburn’s Pendleview Unit and the mental health wards at Burnley General Hospitals, from an average of 44 in the three years to 2012, to 73 in the three years to December.

There was a reduction in 2014, however, with 67 incidents compared to 90 in the previous year.

The last death was recorded at Pendleview in 2009.

The trust said the unpublished national data, contained in the NHS Benchmarking Network Mental Health Toolkit, was “incomplete and unreliable”, and does not take into account the complexity and variation of inpatient beds it provides.

Dee Roach, director of nursing, quality and governance, said work is ongoing to provide more modern facilities, which should reduce the number of ‘ligature points’ on the wards.

She said staff have been given training and support to identify risks, which has helped cut incidents.