A health chief is urging Mental Health Commissioners to back his call for more cash for extra hospital beds for disturbed people.

Bob Allen, chief executive at Airedale NHS Trust, has written to commissioners after they rapped the Trust for keeping mentally ill people in seclusion for too long.

Commissioners who visited Airedale Hospital last summer said staff should be concerned that there were 56 episodes of seclusion lasting between 15 minutes and 64 hours. Patients were secluded for more than 110 hours between March and September.

Highly disturbed patients are put in a secluded room away from other people to be assessed while awaiting a bed at a secure ward in Leeds or Bradford. But often beds are not available.

Commissioners also reveal-ed that patients had to put up with bare and unhomely wards and were often bored. Wards for the elderly needed decorating and the toilets improving.

Mr Allen told Trust members on Tuesday he had drafted a letter to the commissioners in response to their comments. He said: "I made the point that in drawing attention to the shortcomings they also had a responsibility to speak to a higher authority about the impact the government's policy is having on mental health and that the service deserves more attention."

He had stressed Airedale needed a purpose-built mental health unit so it does not have to rely on a system where general wards are adapted.

The Government has declar-ed it wants to put more money into developing extra secure units and Mr Allen believes they will be developed before money is available to build a mental health wing at Airedale. "But more secure units in the region will relieve the pressure on mental health wards like those at Airedale," he said.

He said after the commissioners had visited the hospital in september, staff toured the building and felt the overall standard of service and accommodation for mentally ill patients was high.

Health watchdogs, like Airedale Community Health Council and the Bradford and Airedale Mental Health Advocacy Group have supported the Trust.

John Godward, of Airedale Community Health Council, chief officer said: "It's easy to condemn the hospital but staff are taking this action because of the circumstances - there is a lack of proper provision."

Judith Gay, of Bradford and Airedale Mental Health Advocacy Group, said Airedale was doing its best because it is not the ideal place to deal with people who are very distressed.

Her group is hoping to carry out a survey of individuals who have been in seclusion. "We want to ask them how they feel and do they think it is right," she said.

"Often people who have been in seclusion say it was right because they were so distressed, but others wished it had never happened."

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