Mental health services

On the other hand perhaps getting rid of the ‘asylums’ was a bad idea.

Sorry, you just said that! I only noticed when I read your post through a second time.

In th seventies I was treated in a mental hospital, it was the start of changes. The hospital I was in was the asylum of horror films, very large grey building, grave yard in the ground , not in use. A separate building was erected away from the grey building, just two wards, male and female , the women being treated were for various reasons, a mother of a child who was autistic, she was exhausted, a lady in her eighties who had been widowed after sixty years of marriage, no children, no siblings, grief stricken and frightened . A young girl who was had been over protected by parents, when her father died her mother took her to the cemetry every night to say good night to him, the mother died and the girl was damaged, I had an eating disorder and grief. The grey building had the lock up wards, frightening to walk past. We need hospitals like the wing I was in, the hospital closed under thatcher and we had care in the community , it didn't work for everyone. We know have a wing in an old to hospital, two wards like I was in but far more people in need of beds there. When we had the old hospital suicide was quite rare apart from farmers who shot thrmselves, in recent years we have had many, the river being the place of choice. When we had the drop in centre I held a night emergency call line should one of our visitors need to talk if desperate. Now closed they only have Sams to ring.

I agree about the uselessness in general of Crisis Teams, but in fairness I have to say that they are in a crisis too. Experienced mental health workers are now, in the main, a thing of the past; burnt out and with ever depleted resources many of them have left at the point of needing to become service users themselves. Less experienced staff are struggling with fewer resources and increased bureaucracy at a time when more patients are presenting with extremely complex needs and Mental Health posts are left unfilled for months and sometimes years. Those who go into the profession these days do so knowing that they are joining the poor relation of the health service.
As someone who interacts with mental health professionals regularly I admit that even knowing all of the above doesn't stop me from becoming beyond frustrated and angry with the system and some of the MH professionals I meet. However, in my calmer moments I do acknowledge that if the system is broken (and it most certainly is) then I perhaps should be more sympathetic to the stresses and strains of those who are working in it.
(The latter said through gritted teeth!)

There is a note on my file so that when the local crisis team bring it up they can see it. The note says that if I have contacted them it means I am in immediate danger and they should not suggest I 'take a bath', 'have a nap', 'read a book', 'make a cup of tea' or any other distraction activities. This doesn't always work. Sometimes they're just so busy they can't do anything else but offer platitudes and distraction advice.

The worst thing though is when you get the answerphone. You're desperate to talk to someone and all you get is a machine.

I didn't see the programme Luckygirl but I share the views expressed here.
Care in the Community is better for some people than long term incarcerations but only if it is well resourced. It's more, not less expensive than it was to keep those old institutions functioning.
There are times when residential care of some kind is needed. I despair that public services are being run down to the point of uselessness. Is it a concerted effort to convince us all the public is bad and private is good? If so who will foot the bill for those who need wrap round care.
grannyactivist sums it up well. It's the same in other branches of social/health care - it's impossible to continue to cut cut and slash some more the budgets and expect the services to meet increasingly complex needs.

I was involved in this a week ago , my upstairs neighbour ..we are in a flat..rang me at 3.30am in a state could I go to her she was feeling suicidal,slashing her arms, and had been drinking, this has happened on several occasions before, she is known to the MH team, the drink happens when she has an emotional upset, as she had that day previously, samaritans told her to have a cup of tea, ambulance triage, that she had called for help rang back whilst I was there, gave me the crisis number,which was wrong so rang another,whilst trying to deal with a highly agitated person,eventually got through to correct team, who passed the buck and told me to get GP appointment when surgery opened at 8,I am not trained to deal with this ,I answered a call for help not knowing wether she had overdosed on her meds she has,I eventually got her calm and into bed to sleep, fortunately her elderly mum came later in the day to take her back with her and after a week away she has returned.

Once again this issue has surfaced, MH nurses are battling almost insuperable odds. My daughter has worked in the Community and despite her best efforts at resolving the immediate crisis there is nowhere to turn for continuing support and treatment. Successive governments have run the service into the ground. The word Asylum has now got unfortunate connotations but its real meaning is about offering safety from perceived danger. There is a great need for more Units to offer a place of safety where people can get appropriate care and treatment. So called care in the Community has in the main failed most people.

Care in the Community has failed/ is failing because it is not properly resourced. The basic concept was right - the long stay institutions that were closed down were in many cases offering poor quality institutionalised non individualised care and abuse was certainly not unknown. It’s the shortage now of small scale residential units in the community for both crisis care and longer term care that is part of the problem. But fundamentally, there is no leading politician that really and meaningfully ‘champions’ mental health - there’s much lip service but little action. But as soon as something goes wrong, it’s all the social workers/doctors/ police officers fault. Never the fault of the politicians and the public in general

Needs have changed, alcholism , drug addiction, counselling, people do not live in close communities now, children need psychiatrists , elderly live alone not with family. Psychiatry not top of the list for people wanting to work in medicine.

But in the past people had much worse situations to cope with. Wars, famine, typhus, cholera. No NHS, no medicines, no benefits to fall back on.

Alcoholism isn’t something new, nor is homelessness.

So are we less resilient these days?

I think it’s hard to draw a meaningful comparison, Society was different, mental health services were different ( not necessarily better). Expectations were different! All that matters now is the fact that the MH services are in crisis and basically there is no political will to do anything about that in any meaningful way because the well off can always access The Priory

The people at the front line do their best but the system is not properly resourced and it's not properly organised so buck passing becomes the 'go to' action - if you can call it that. We are not moving with the times as a country and with the current MPs in place who are nice as people but useless when it comes to the crunch we will not be progressing any time soon. Departments are afraid of doing the 'wrong' thing and stick to antiquated systems. Awareness of mental health is fortunately being raised thanks to royal input but what is happening in reality? The above posts give some idea as do my family's own experiences.

The need for a place of asylum is vital in these crisis situations; a place for someone in a severe state to be cared for and kept safe.

Care in the community never was going to work - it sounded good on paper and in principle, but it needs huge amounts of money that has never been forthcoming. I was working for SS when this idea came in and we all kept saying: "It will cost more, not less."

The irony is that the cost in wasted time by police and ambulance services is huge. They are trying to do something they do not have the qualifications for and the poor patient gets shifted between them all with no satisfactory result.

But, hey-ho, let's give the EU £40billion!

Not the EU please. We voted out

It was just a throwaway line Annie - I know we voted out! I was just trying to illustrate the need to allocate funds to this service.

It’s perfectly reasonable when discussing the problems of poorly funded public services to make the point that there IS always money to be found if the Government wants to find it - bribing the DUP, paying the debt we owe to the EU, WFA for well off pensioners

It is indeed about priorities. The whole of the health service is struggling - the mental health services are the most deprived.

The problem is that those making these decisions are able to pay for what they need and find it hard to imagine what it is like to be so ill that you wish to end your life and no-one is tasked to help you. That is a disgrace.

It’s no good just throwing money at the situation, though obviously services need to be improved, but more needs to be done to teach people how to cope with the stresses, trials and tribulations life inevitably throws at us.

I’m sure past generations were much tougher - well they had to be. Too many of our young people have been brought up in a culture that says they are the centre of the universe. Or they haven’t experienced failure in a supportive environment and learned to deal with it. Competition, is a No No, so they’ve always ‘won’ even if they came last in that race. And certainly the culture if going out and getting legless at weekends will fuel the rise in alcoholism.

I’m not denying these people need help. What I’m saying is we need to examine the way we molly coddle our children, yet expose them to the the world and culture and stresses of t21st century life, without helping them to develop the resilience needed to live in this world,

Prevention being better than cure.

There is a difference between a mental illness and simply being unable to cope with life.

A mental illness can afflict anyone at any time and has nothing at all to do with "mollycoddling" or lack of resilience. I cannot believe that this misconception is still doing the rounds. Mental illnesses are related to brain chemistry and structure - they can be triggered or exacerbated by stress, but that is not the root cause.

I agree that we need to look to how our children are brought up - but my take on that is not that they are "mollycoddled" (how I hate that word) but that we need to ask ourselves why mental health problems are now so prevalent in teenagers and young adults - I believe that the stress of the school system with unrealistic targets and exhausted teachers has a great deal to do with this, as well as the evil of drug pushers who prey on the young. All these things can trigger mental illness in susceptible people.

The implication that mental illness is a sign of weakness or poor upbringing is offensive and inaccurate and another excuse not to fund the service properly.

I was brought up in a home full of love, in a mining village which was so secure . I was encouraged to make my decisions, had freedom to speak out , was given confidence to be me. Yet things happened and mental illness struck, so it can hit anyone. As for the wealthy, they cannot avoid it, my husbands sister has been in the .priory three times,still not healed.

My beloved daughter who was so strong mentally yet was hit with a mental illness which brought about self medicating, which brought about alcoholism. Impossible to say why it strikes , it just does and the suffering unbearable for many. We must never, ever judge .

You don’t have to lecture me on mental illness lucky and to deny the place that having build-in coping skills to deal with the stresses that can lead to breakdown is a symptom of the society we live in.

Mental illness can and does strike indiscriminately especially those illnesses with a genetic factor. However you seem to be saying in one sentence thar you agree with my statement about the stresses on our young people and then in the next saying that I’m being offensive by suggesting we try to equip the young and vulnerable with coping skills.

You can’t have it both ways. Either we can help those whose mental illness is brought on by these factors or we can just throw our hands in the air and say there’s nothing we can do.

I am not the product of molly coddling. Neither am I a weak person. I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. Mental health issues will never be taken seriously until people understand that.

If I had a physical chronic condition such as diabetes or kidney failure no one would accuse me of being weak. But you can't see my illness.

Whilst I'm on my soapbox. Depression is not the same as 'being a bit down in the dumps' and anxiety is not the same as 'being a bit churned up'.

I absolutely agree Friday that we need to build in help for young people to become resilient. I greatly favour children learning relaxation techniques as part of the life skills that comprise their education. Would you favour this, or is it mollycoddling?