People with a diagnosis of mental illness get worse quality physical healthcare

This is a review that was published in 2009.

Mitchell, A. et al. 2009, Quality of medical care for people with and
without comorbid mental illness and substance misuse: systematic review
of comparative studies, The British Journal of Psychiatry
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/194/6/491?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&titleabstract=quality+healthcare&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT,HWELTR
<http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/194/6/491?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&titleabstract=quality+healthcare&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT,HWELTR>

It's a sad and startling result.

These are the author's conclusions and I think they've been conservative
in them.
"Despite similar or more frequent medical contacts, there are often
disparities in the physical healthcare delivered to those with
psychiatric illness although the magnitude of this effect varies
considerably."

Here's a snip.
"
In one of the largest studies to date, Young et al identified 25 237
people with mental illness who had suffered a myocardial infarction.The
authors examined rates of revascularisation procedures (cardiac
catheterisation, percutaneous transluminal coronary angiography and
coronary artery bypass graft surgery) and mortality, stratified by age.
Those with a mental illness had significantly lower levels of all three
revascularisation procedures compared with those without mental illness,
with the lowest rates seen in those older than 64 years. With regard to
in-patient mortality post-myocardial infarction, in the older cohort
(older than 65 years) with mental illness there was a 21% lower
risk-adjusted likelihood of death (P<0.001) compared with those without
mental illness. In the younger cohort those with schizophrenia and
substance misuse had higher in-patient mortality rates (both P<0.001).
"
The standardised mortality ratio (SMR) in the UK is 5 for people with a
diagnosis of schizophrenia. It means they're 5 times more likely to die
than the general population. The UK has one of, if not the highest, SMR
in Europe. This paper shows the strongest reasons for that effect. The
review looks at other mental illnesses as well and the problem happens
across the spectrum.

It's late and I'm tired. I should have been asleep ages ago. It's lucky.
There'd be some serious swearing going on otherwise. Ah....fuck it.