Mental Health

NannaAnna I work as a mental health worker (not in a mental health team) but I have also been in the position of negotiating services for someone very close to me, and I share your frustration. In the course of three days we went from a point where my loved one was offered admission for his own safety, to outpatient support from the crisis team, to being told he did not need support. He was actively suicidal. The treatment he received from this psychiatrist made him feel worthless. My own qualifications and experience did not help me at all, only resulted I'm me being patronised. I made my feelings clear but that is no comfort for the fact that my relative was let down and abandoned.

I see MH services from the other side as a patient and tbh in this area they're rubbish. Amongst other issues I have agoraphobia which means I can't get to my appointments because I can't leave the house. There is no system in place for them to come to me.

I'm in a Catch 22 situation and to be frank they don't give a damn. They'd like to discharge me but they can't because I'm doing my best to cooperate. They don't want to refer me on because that means they don't tick the right box on their targets. My GP is trying to get me an appointment with a psych but the system doesn't really allow for that.

On 14th November I won't have left the house alone for a year. Thank God for my husband, ASDA home deliveries and the internet.

vq that's awful. Can they not review your progress (or lack of it) and work out a fresh plan to help you?

vampirequeen it is a national disgrace. On this occasion, my daughter had been admitted after an overdose. The waiting time for counselling is one year!!! She was on the ward for 6 days before being even seen by a doctor! In the end she was discharged without even seeing anyone from the community team because no-one was available. The 'official' explanation for all of these unacceptable delays was "there are too many patients here" ???
My complaints centred around the theft of possessions on the ward (not just my daughter's possessions) and the totally disgusting "we don't give a damn, p*ss off" attitude of the staff.
I was genuinely shocked.

NannaAnna. Truly horrible experience. If nothing else, write to your local paper and to your MP?

Nightowl, thank you for the IMHA idea. I'd thought of it here, but I feel that contact with the cr@ppy system would just be too much for me. Especially the complacency of the powers that be. They don't seem to want to change. I'll plug away at my contact with the local MP, who does seem concerned and is in a position to do something (it's her job ffs!)

Hi isthisallthereis It wasn't local to me, as my daughter lives in central London, and we are talking about one of the capital's main hospitals!!
I have however made sure an enquiry will be undertaken, and they have shown genuine concern, which is something I guess.
I would also advise getting very vocal on Twitter, if you can. There isn't a company, corporation or institution in the world that doesn't respond very quickly to well-constructed and genuine negative tweets. They hate it! You may be surprised at the power of Twitter if you're not a social media person, but in my experience, it works every time (I've used it to get results both here and in the Middle East when I lived there. Never fails!)

It's across the country. MH has always been the poor relation but now it's worse than ever.

Last week I was suicidal and kept alive by my husband and friends on a MH website.

This weekend we've been trying to keep another member alive. With gentle pushing from us she went to see an out of hours doctor last Thursday. He told her to contact the Crisis Team. They told her she needed diazapam and to go back to the out of hours doctor. So she went back and he gave her some.

She spent Friday spaced out because of the diazapam. By Friday night she was desperate again so she phoned the Crisis Team to find the number was answered by a machine saying there was no one available and they would phone her back the next day. They didn't. Fortunately she was online with us at the same time.

Saturday she was very ill so we persuaded her to go to A and E as they have a duty psych team. She waited a long time but was eventually seen by someone who told her to keep taking the diazapam and........contact the Crisis Team.

Yesterday we kept her going and are hoping that today she will have gone to see her GP so at least he knows that she's got diazapam and can check her sh wounds.

Anybody trying to get help from East Kent has my sympathy. My daughter was almost killed by one of the senior consultants at the Kent and Canterbury and it transpires he had 75 complaints against him, dating back to well before her operation. I am a member of an organisation for whistle-blowers and some of the persecution to which they are subjected, in both the public and private sectors, is truly shocking and inhuman.

I am in the position of a mother whose daughter is obviously very ill but won't face the fact, so there is nothing I can do except wait for the dreaded phone call. I am not blaming the local mental health service - unless she is sectioned or asks for help there is nothing they can do either.