Ministers could order a public inquiry into psychological well being care and affected person deaths throughout England due to the variety of scandals which might be rising involving poor remedy.

Maria Caulfield, the minister for psychological well being, advised MPs on Thursday that she and the well being secretary, Steve Barclay, have been contemplating whether or not to launch an inquiry as a result of the identical failings have been occurring so typically in so many various elements of the nation.

They would make a closing resolution “in the coming days”, she mentioned within the House of Commons, responding to an pressing query tabled by her Labour shadow, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan.

An impartial investigation discovered this week that that three teenage girls – Christie Harnett, 17, Nadia Sharif, 17, and Emily Moore, 18 – took their very own lives inside the house of eight months after receiving insufficient care from the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys (TEWV) NHS psychological well being belief in north-east England.

They died after “multifaceted and systemic failings” by the belief, particularly at its West Lane hospital in Middlesbrough, the inquiry discovered.

Allin-Khan pointed to a sequence of scandals which have come to mild, typically by media investigations, about dangerously substandard psychological well being care being offered by NHS providers and likewise personal corporations in England, together with in Essex and in Greater Manchester.

“Patients are dying, being bullied, dehumanised, abused and their medical records are being falsified, a scandalous breach of patient safety,” Allin-Khan mentioned. “The government has failed to learn from past failings.”

Caulfield acknowledged that the failings at TEWV weren’t a one-off and that different latest scandals meant ministers and the NHS urgently wanted to understand how deep-seated poor care was.

“I am not satisfied that the failings we’ve heard about today are necessarily isolated incidents at a handful of trusts,” she mentioned. Caulfield mentioned she would imminently meet Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s scientific director for psychological well being, and Dr Henrietta Hughes, the just lately appointed affected person security commissioner, to assist agree on what to do.

NHS England had just lately instigated a “system-wide investigation into the safety and quality of [mental health] services across the board”, particularly little one and adolescent psychological well being providers, the minister mentioned.

Caulfield advised MPs: “On the issue of a public inquiry, I am not necessarily saying there won’t be a public inquiry but it needs to be on a national basis and not just on an individual trust basis because, as we’ve seen in [scandals involving NHS] maternity [care], very often when we repeat these inquiries, they produce the same information and we need to learn systematically about how to reduce these failings.”

She added: “The issue I have with a public inquiry is that they’re not timely, they can take many years, and we’ve clearly got some cases now which need some urgent review and some urgent action”.

Ministers could fee a “rapid review” somewhat than a public inquiry, in an effort to produce proof and proposals for motion extra shortly, Caulfield added.

Deborah Coles, the director of Inquest, a charity that helps households of people that have died whereas receiving NHS psychological well being care, mentioned the federal government ought to order a “full and fearless” public inquiry as a matter of urgency as a prelude to ordering sweeping adjustments.

“Bereaved families are all too familiar with hearing about new reviews or investigations. Previous critical inquests, inspections and investigations of mental health services have failed to compel the transformation in culture and leadership that is needed,” she mentioned.

“It is our view, and the view of many of the bereaved families we work with, that a national, statutory inquiry should be established to facilitate a full and fearless examination of the issues across mental health services which are leading to neglect, abuse and deaths. Nothing less will suffice.”