by David Shipley, The Critic
By treating disparities in mental health detention as evidence of racism, the NHS is sacrificing safety
Anti-racism, the secular religion of the modern British state, has been the focus of much attention in recent weeks, as its role in Henry Nowak’s death has become evident. Police policy documents have been found which instruct that arrest and charge rates should be made equal between groups — even though levels of criminality are different. The effect of such a policy can only be entirely perverse, ensuring that the police under-arrest high criminality groups and over-arrest lower-criminality groups as anti-racism twists the original purpose of an organisation to the pursuit of equality of outcome.
Such perversity is not limited to policing. Last week it was reported that NHS psychiatrists are “under pressure not to section psychotic Black patients to avoid appearing racist”. As with the police, this isn’t an informal, or hidden directive. Rather, it’s made explicit in the NHS’s own policy documents, such as the ‘Patient and carer race equality framework’ (PCREF). The policy was written by NHS England’s Mental Health Equalities Adviser and Chair of the Advancing Mental Health Equalities Taskforce, Dr Jacqui Dyer, who according to the NHS’s website, does not appear to be a medical doctor but “an experienced counsellor, trainer, personal and professional development coach and group facilitator”. Dyer has also been a mental service user and carer, member of the Ministerial Advisory Group for Mental Health, is an elected Lambeth Labour Councillor, and advisory panel member of the Mental Health Act Review.
It is unclear why someone with no clinical experience in mental health is trusted to write policy in this area, and in truth PCREF is a strange document, Dyer, explaining that: