Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency

Two weeks after becoming a mum, Laura is sectioned having tried to drive into a brick wall. And is 11-year-old Briena really suicidal, or is the underlying diagnosis more complicated?

A teenager with a history of bullying is admitted to a psychiatric ward after a pattern of self-harm and suicide attempts that has left her mother forced to remove all sharp objects from the house and keep medicines locked up. A doctor discusses how she has been forced to seek outside help in dealing with her daughter's eating disorder when it began to seriously impact on her health, and child and Adolescent Mental Health nurse Steph Langley discusses why modern teenagers are now more likely to harm themselves in response to low mood.

The crisis team must decide if a 15-year-old boy brought into A&E after trying to kill himself is safe to be sent home, or if he needs to be admitted to a psychiatric ward. As staffing shortages impact mental health services, personnel often find themselves forced to determine what the least harmful option for their patients is. Among the cases they are struggling to keep safe are a man with schizophrenia, depression, acute anxiety and psychogenic seizures who no longer qualifies for the support he relies on, and a woman with a personality disorder who has attempted suicide 15 times in the last three years.

The work of Street Triage, a rapid response team in Nottinghamshire consisting of a psychiatric nurse and a police officer who intervene in suicide attempts. The team finds that many of the people they help are desperate for a bed in a psychiatric ward - but few are available, and it often leaves family members forced to travel great distances to see the patients.