Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
If the Health Service were perfect there would be no suicides among hospital patients. The first aim of all doctors and nurses is to preserve life, and patients are admitted to hospital in part so that they will not harm or kill themselves. Yet every year over 100, perhaps 200 or more people in the UK, deliberately end their lives while receiving in-patient psychiatric care. The exact number is not known, partly because of the way the statistics are collected, and partly because of a pall of secrecy spread over such deaths.
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