I’m a doctor, not a counter-terrorism operative. Let me do my job | Adrian James

Screening all mental health patients for radicalisation under the Prevent strategy is stigmatising and will only deter people who need help

“There should be no conflation of mental ill health and terrorism,” says NHS guidance on how the Prevent duty should be administered. I wholeheartedly agree, and I’m highly concerned by the report from Warwick University that suggests the very opposite is happening.

A number of mental health trusts in England seem to be applying radicalisation screening to each and every one of their patients. This sends out a strongly stigmatising message. It implies that people with mental illness are a group apart. In the words of the report’s authors this “inappropriately positions” those with mental illnesses as a community from which terrorism originates.

It needs to be understood that radicalisation is not a mental illness

Related: Report finds some NHS mental health trusts screen all patients for radicalisation

Continue reading... March 21, 2018 at 03:05PM