MENTAL health care in Dorset is again under the microscope after a far-reaching report condemned the controversial practice of sending ill people long distances for treatment.

There are just six, men-only intensive psychiatric care beds in the county, at St Ann’s Hospital in Poole, and some patients are being treated as far away as Yorkshire or Greater Manchester.

Dorset HealthCare has revealed it paid £2.8million to providers elsewhere in the country between March and December last year.

An independent commission report just released said around 500 people travel more than 30 miles for emergency treatment across the country every month and called for an end to the practice by October 2017.

The commission, led by Lord Nigel Crisp and supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has produced a report which says: “Out of area treatments cause problems for patients and for their families and carers.

“Geographical separation from a patient’s support networks can leave them feeling isolated and delay recovery.

“Mental health personnel from the patients’ home area have difficulties in visiting them with the result that they may well spend longer as inpatients than they would have done if admitted locally.”

Lord Crisp said: “It is time to end the difference in standards between mental and physical illnesses.”

A spokesman for Dorset HealthCare said the trust’s board of directors had given the go-ahead for a new unit at St Ann’s, comprising five beds and a de-escalation suite for women and seven beds and a de-escalation suite for men, to be operational before the end of the year. This would cost around £1.64m.

Eugine Yafele, Dorset HealthCare’s mental health director, said: “The new unit will be a major step forward. It will bring our psychiatric intensive care facilities for women in line with those for male patients and also improve the experience of service users and their carers, as they will be treated locally.

“It is absolutely our ambition to reduce out-of-area treatments – we firmly believe that people should receive care close to home when they are unwell. We believe the unit should meet the needs of the local population.”

A spokesman for Dorset HealthCare said the trust’s board of directors had given the go-ahead for a new unit at St Ann’s, comprising five beds and a de-escalation suite for women and seven beds and a de-escalation suite for men, to be operational before the end of the year. This would cost around £1.64m.

Eugine Yafele, Dorset HealthCare’s mental health director, said: “The new unit will be a major step forward. It will bring our psychiatric intensive care facilities for women in line with those for male patients and also improve the experience of service users and their carers, as they will be treated locally.

“It is absolutely our ambition to reduce out-of-area treatments – we firmly believe that people should receive care close to home when they are unwell. We believe the unit should meet the needs of the local population.”