Health Minister Rosie Winterton praised mental health projects in Bradford yesterday as she launched a nationwide plan to improve services for ethnic minorities.

She was in the city to mark the start of a three-month consultation period designed to find out how services need to be changed to help people from different backgrounds.

The aim of the scheme is to appoint 500 community development workers across the country by 2006.

Miss Winterton was at the Horton Park Centre in Horton Park Avenue along with the national strategy director and chief executive of the National Institute of Mental Health for England, Professor Kamlesh Patel and Anthony Sheehan.

She said Bradford was chosen for the launch because it had good examples of how services were being designed along the lines of the framework.

"They are looking at how the services can meet the clients' needs.

"We know that there's a problem at the moment and it's important that we address that."

She said that research showed people from ethnic minorities were less happy with mental health services and black people were six times more likely than the rest of the population to be detained under the Mental Health Act.

Women born in India and East Africa also had a 40 per cent higher suicide rate than English women, she said.

She met staff from the Home Treatment Service, which provides round-the-clock help at home for people having a mental health crisis and City Community Mental Health Team.

Miss Winterton also visited the Naye Subah - New Dawn - scheme which helps Asian women with mental health difficulties.

Ghazala Khan, project co-ordinator, said mental health problems, including in the Asian community, were still stigmatised.

"But I think people are beginning to realise that this kind of group benefits the whole family," she said.