PROMISES of a safety refuge for those in a state of mental health crisis have not been honoured. We need to know why and we need to know soon.

Answerability is not an irritating inconvenience to be shrugged off by politicians and health professionals.

Already in a number of EU states there exists an option of euthanasia by individual consent, with the increasing risk that this choice will be offered by doctors to those suffering from mental illness.

Perhaps it is the right moment for us in the UK to recall that the origins of psychiatric medicine in Germany during the 1930s both favoured and carried through a “final solution” for thousands of mentally ill people.

We need to be concerned.

Resistance to answerability by those in control of mental health care does raise the question of exactly what, ultimately, they have in mind.

Trust isn’t enough any more.

Gareth Papps, Main Street, Stillington.