PUBLIC attitudes to mental health have continued to improve since the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland last interviewed acute patients across the country in 2012.

People are more aware of the importance of their own mental well-being, while stigma and workplace prejudice around mental health problems are in retreat, albeit too slowly.

The issue has moved sharply up the political agenda – 2012 was the year MPs Charles Walker and Kevan Jones made headlines for speaking about their mental health problems. Despite one in four people in the UK suffering from such issues, the pair were hailed for making historic speeches in the Commons about a “taboo” subject.

Promises of improved mental health provision featured heavily in the subsequent manifestos for Westminster and Holyrood, and are also a theme in next month’s council election.

Last month, the Scottish Government published its 10-year strategy for mental health, pledging to spend an extra £300 million over five years, with an ambition to achieve “parity of esteem” in the way mental and physical illnesses are treated.

Against such a backdrop, the report today from the Commission into conditions on Scotland’s adult acute wards is doubly disturbing.

It is a thorough piece of work, based on reviews of the care given to 323 patients aged from 16 to 86 on 47 adult acute mental health wards run by 11 health boards.

The Commission found some welcome improvements since 2012, most notably in care planning, the physical state of wards, respectful staff, and the greater use of peer support workers who had their own experience of mental illness and recovery.

But it also found some patients were spending too long on mental health admission wards, particularly those with alcohol-related brain damage.

This group accounted for one in 20 patients, but one in seven of those staying longer than 200 days. More worrying still, there were high levels of fear about the safety – or lack of it – on wards.

One in five patients reported feeling unsafe at night, a deterioration on the 2012 figure, largely because of a lack of staff. A quarter of female patients on mixed wards also reported being distressed by “inappropriate sexual remarks” from male patients.

Remarkably, given general mixed sex wards were scrapped across the NHS in 2005, almost all the acute wards surveyed – 43 of the 47 – had beds occupied by both sexes.

That does not sound like the “parity of esteem” sought by the Scottish Government; it sounds like the dark days of mental health being treated as a Cinderella service.

As Alison Thomson, Executive Director (Nursing) at the Commission, says: “It was concerning to hear patients tell us they were worried about their own safety, particularly at night. This was a particular issue for women on mixed wards.”

The Government says its 10-year strategy, which does not even mention mixed sex wards, will involve putting “the right staff in the right place”. Today’s report highlights where NHS boards can make a long overdue start.