The Nottingham killings are a warning sign for the whole of the NHS

Editorial: At the core of the review into the Nottingham triple murders lies the question of public safety. The first priority of mental health services is to protect the general public from the small number of people who are a danger to others

From left, Ian Coates, Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar were killed by Valdo Calocane in Notingham last June (Nottinghamshire Police/PA)

The killing of two students and a caretaker in Nottingham last year by Valdo Calocane, who had a history of mental illness, has acted as a clarion call to fix the country’s mental health services.

Calocane was under the notional care of Nottinghamshire Hospital Foundation Trust, and a report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the NHS safety watchdog, has now found that there were serious failings within the trust.

The CQC report says that patients regarded urgent services as either “useless” or actually detrimental to their health. The trust struggled with high demand for its mental health services, and the report says: “People described issues including being discharged ‘too soon’ or leaving inpatient services in a ‘worse state’ than when they arrived.” It adds: “This could lead to people being readmitted to services very soon after discharge or rapidly deteriorating in the community.”