This report in today’s Independent is mostly anecdotal so may or may not be a sign of a real crisis developing:
‘The Independent has heard from patients who say their mental health has deteriorated because of the discharge process, which has left them feeling powerless and damaged their faith in services meant to keep them safe. Others grappling with addiction issues have been ejected from inpatient care and told to get clean before the NHS is able to treat their psychological issues. Psychiatrists said falling numbers of mental health beds and the loss of specialist units for more complex patients have created pressures to discharge, which cash-strapped community services have not been able to meet.’
So far, I can see no sign of copycat behaviour by our NoMedia in Scotland but I will watch out for it. If you search for ‘NHS Scotland mental health patients risk suicide adequate support’, there is no sign of what would be a choice morsel for them to report on.
What about official statistics then? What proportion of deaths by suicide can be linked to fairly recent discharge? See this table
As you can see, only 7.7% had been discharged within the previous 30 days and we cannot say how many if any of them were discharged without adequate support.
So, there is clearly an absence of the evidence of a significant problem in Scotland, but the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence unless you’re thinking of our NoMedia. We know from previous experience that even a sniff of a single case will do them. See these recent examples:
Talking-up Scotland 
Worth checking this out:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47276161
BBC Scotland website talking up aspects of the Scottish NHS. Wow!
Seems alike a sensible approach – take a small amount of time to decide if a patient has an immediately-life-threatening condition or not and prioritise the most time-critical cases.
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Sorry but you cant say this is not true , our mental health services are in bits and not up to the job especially the child 15yrs to “adult” 16yrs services .. I have seen the mess that is left behind after lack of care or no care at all.. basic things like remembering a patients name !! suicide attempts on a daily basis to call for help and to be told “deal with it”…. the wider public have NO idea the scale of the problem none.
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