HEALTH watchdogs in East Lancashire, it seems, share our concern that there are too few hospital beds for the mentally ill and claim today the situation is at crisis point.

Health Trust bosses admit the pressures, but stress they have not been forced to turn away any patients.

This does not concur with the tragic case we reported only three weeks ago of a man with a history of depression who killed himself after being denied admission to the mental health unit at Queen's Park Hospital, Blackburn, because of a beds shortage.

Yet our concern, underlined today by the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Community Health Council's call for more beds for the 10 per cent of mentally-ill people who need in-hospital care, is that hospital chiefs are not doing enough to relieve the pressures or deter such tragedies.

True, they have agreed a £5million plan to develop a new mental health unit at Queen's Park. But though this will improve the standard of accommodation, it will do little to alleviate the demand for it.

That is because the current provision of 70 beds will be increased by just two.

Yet, recognising the "considerable pressure" the in-patient service was under, the hospital trust's own study of the problem last year stated that, for the population it served, the normal provision would be 80 to 100 beds.

It may be that health planners face financial constraints and are, at the same time, anxious to improve the care in the community where the majority of mentally ill people are treated.

But if in-patient care is already at crisis point and they are disregarding their own yardstick on the number of extra beds needed, is it not time for them to urgently think again?

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