The Monitoring the Mental Health Act 2024/2025 report, which was built on interviews with over 3,000 patients and over 700 family members and carers, revealed worrying reoccurring issues of staff shortages, a lack of beds and inconsistencies in experiences.

Chris Dzikiti, interim chief inspector of mental health at the CQC, said: ‘Many people who are detained under the Mental Health Act have exhausted all other avenues of care, yet they still face long waits, with families sometimes forced to supervise them constantly while they wait.'

While noting the positive impact of hard-working, caring, and compassionate staff the report revealed: people being placed far from home and children sometimes being placed in adult wards; people in deprived areas were three times more likely to be detained than those in the least deprived areas; and black people being detained four times more than white people.

While some wards were clean, tidy and designed in a way that supports people's needs, some patients recall noisy, dirty, and loud wards, with one parent describing ‘blood on the walls' and a ‘disgusting' toilet.

Dzikiti added: ‘It's deeply disappointing to again be highlighting the same issues of overworked healthcare workers, unequal experiences, people being placed in inappropriate environments and ultimately people struggling to get the care they need.'

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘It is unacceptable that some people are not receiving the mental health care they need. 

‘Transforming the broken system we inherited will take time, but we have already taken significant steps, including hiring over 7,000 extra mental health workers.

‘The Mental Health Act 2025 will ensure that people with the most severe mental health conditions get better, more personalised care and have greater choice and control over their treatment.'

The DHSC has announced a review into mental health and ADHD services and said it was committed to addressing the persistent racial disparities under the Mental Health Act through continued roll out of the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework.

Rebecca Gray, mental health director speaking on behalf of the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, said: ‘The CQC lays bare that unacceptable racial inequalities still exist. We welcome the acknowledgement in the report of the work members are doing to address this. The implementation of the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework and Advance Choice Documents will help reduce racial inequalities, if embedded effectively.

‘A focus on interventions that keep people out of crisis and reduce detentions is crucial. Mental health providers want to accelerate change in community care, drawing on new approaches to crisis support, NHS and voluntary sector partnerships, and looking at how secondary mental health services and primary care can work together more effectively.'