THE Health Service is complacent and fatalistic about the physical needs of people with mental health problems or learning disabilities, according to an investigation by the Disability Rights Commission.
Patients in this group are more likely to suffer from a range of illnesses and to die younger, yet they often re- ceive worse care, it said.
The commission concluded that hundreds of thousands had poor access to treatments and information.
Many even found that their physical symptoms were blamed on their mental health problems.
The commission said that it encountered “complacency and a lazy fatalism” that people in this group simply died younger or would not look after their health.
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They did not get equal access to information, for example to brochures published in large print or on tape.
The commission also found that schizophrenics were almost twice as likely to suffer bowel cancer, and people with bipolar disorder or depression had higher rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, respiratory disease and stroke.
Yet cholesterol tests and prescriptions of cholesterol-lowering statins were offered far less often to such people.
Rosie Winterton, the Health Minister, said that £7 million had been made available to trusts to employ “well-being nurses”.