"Deterioration instead of progress": Greater Manchester's failing mental health system more than a year on from abuse bombshell

More than a year on from shocking revelations that patients were being abused by staff at Greater Manchester’s troubled mental health system – and numerous pledges of progress – half the improvements the trust promised are ‘not progressing to plan’.

The Manchester Evening News has spent months reporting on serious issues at Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH). Young people dying on mental health wards, followed by admissions medical notes were doctored; harrowing treatment of vulnerable people at inpatient facilities caught on camera; and staff in racism rows are among the headlines revealed by the M.E.N.

At the trust’s latest board meeting on Monday this week (November 27), papers revealed that the improvement plan the trust itself created is not on track. There are five improvement categories, each with subtasks.

Of 44 areas within each category of improvement, which have been colour-graded, 26 have been declared as ‘red’ - meaning ‘at least one deliverable within sub-workstream not progressing to plan’. Eight of those 44 specific improvement areas have been identified as actively ‘deteriorating’.

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Only five areas for improvement out of the entire 44 are graded ‘green’, where a ‘majority of/all deliverable have been completed’.

The improvement plan areas classed as ‘deteriorating’ include ‘ligature risk management’, ‘safeguarding’, ‘sexual safety’, ‘safe and therapeutic environments’, ‘recruitment and workforce supply’, ‘induction and onboarding’, ‘strengthening the service user and carer voice’, and ‘data quality and visibility’.

The GMMH board papers detail