N.H. Still Missing Deadlines to Fix Mental Health Care

Lebanon — New Hampshire state and nonprofit social service agencies, including Lebanon-based West Central Behavioral Health, have continued to miss deadlines to improve key elements of mental health care, according to a court-appointed monitor.

Stephen Day, the expert reviewer overseeing reforms called for in the settlement of a 2012 lawsuit by patients and advocates, said the state’s failure to keep its promises had left some patients without treatment, waiting in hospital emergency rooms for high-level care or institutionalized when they could otherwise be receiving care through community clinics and services.

“The time for patience on these issues is over,” Day wrote. He noted “the need for the State to be more aggressive, assertive, planful, and timely in its implementation and oversight efforts” of the lawsuit settlement.

Day, who in January issued his last assessment, said the state “has been and currently remains out of compliance” with its obligation to expand and upgrade so-called Assertive Community Treatment teams. Such teams are made up of caregivers with a range of skills and training and provide high-level, ongoing treatment in community settings to patients with serious mental illness.

Read more: http://www.vnews.com/Court-Montitor-New-Hampshire-Misses-More-Mental-Health-Reform-Deadlines-3307994