Fiona Sinclair of the pressure group Autism Rights concludes her two part series on some of the implications of current and mental health legislation in Scotland, and urges cross party support for real change
THERE are more general statistical and informational `black holes` in the Scottish mental health system which compound the failure to offer basic protections of human rights for people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Learning Disabilities.
There are no published statistics on the numbers of deaths in the mental health system. There is no separate collation of data for those people who commit suicide whilst in the `care` of the mental health system. There is no collation of data on assaults or other `adverse events` that happen in the system. When the Westminster government discovered that there were 40,000 face-down restraints in the previous year within the English mental health system, it decided that action needed to be taken.
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