NEW efforts to tackle racism in mental health services are being piloted in the region.

The Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS mental health trust, which has its headquarters in Middlesbrough, has been chosen as one of 17 sites around the country.

The North-East trust will be involved in putting into practice a five-year action plan for reform, called Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care.

The trust, which has outposts in Hartlepool and Stockton, Teesside, and Scarborough, Malton and Whitby, North Yorkshire, will be expected to act as a "hothouse of reform", identifying best practice and spreading what it learns across the country.

Health Minister Rosie Winterton said: "For too long there have been significant and unacceptable inequalities in the access to mental health services that black and minority ethnic patients have, both in their experience of those services and in the outcomes."

As part of the initiative, the North-East trust will have to demonstrate a commitment to reduce rates of compulsory detention of black and ethnic minority mental health patients, and prevent deaths following physical intervention.

This week, the Tees and North East Yorkshire trust was commended by the Mental Health Act Commission for its work leading up to the first national mental health and ethnicity census, which took place yesterday.

The purpose of the census is to obtain accurate figures of the numbers of black and ethnic minority inpatients using mental health services on that day.