DOCTORS are failing to identify dangerously violent patients in the UK. A government report published on 22 September says that many murders committed by people with severe mental illness could have been prevented by better assessment combined with laws to allow doctors to forcibly medicate those at high risk or return them to a secure ward.
Tony Maden at Imperial College London examined the records of 25 people with schizophrenia who murdered while under National Health Service care. He used a violence checklist that is widely used in Canada, but not in the UK, to assess their mental states before…
