October, 28th, 2014
Public mental health spending in England too low, says Mind - BBC News
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October, 26th, 2014
Your crisis needs to be during office hours
J’s having a terrible time. She’s at home and all the dark thoughts are back. The problem is that it’s the weekend. In order to get any help, support, advice or safeguarding, we have the go to A&E in the city up the road. Both of us don’t drive. I don’t want to be on suicide watch without sleep, but I also don’t think we should go to A&E to wait 5 hours in EDU until the (city, not county) Crisis Team see us, and then some patronizing cunt to tell us to go home and drink cups of tea or some such rot until Monday when we can try to get hold of her CPN within office hours. I mean, they sometimes do this after you’ve been admitted for a physical emergency like a suicide attempt.
Going down her list of things she’s supposed to do in crisis and choosing the one line which was functioning at that hour, J rang The Samaritans last night. They seemed to be supporting her, but then they told her to ring someone she trusted. I live just up the road, and I’d returned to mine after days of trying to sleep on her floor, and naturally she’s worried about disturbing me in the early hours. She waits, suicidal, one hour and half hours, to call me. She is in tears and scared of what she might do. She’s also feeling really guilty about calling me, her self-loathing and low self-worth would prefer death over the fear of inconveniencing others. Nonetheless, she somehow survives the night (negative coping strategies aside) and I was with her most of today until just now. It’s about 2am, Saturday night, Sunday morning.
It’s particularly difficult for me because I still don’t really trust the local services to do the right thing and most of their decisions don’t keep her safe and lead to more work on my part as well. At least it seems that way. We also still have a complaint outstanding about staff dismissing J before her last big O/D. Feeling pretty alienated. I keep putting off calling a carer-support group - the local one is run by Rethink. Lines are open in office hours. Heh. At least she’s getting on with her CPN, at least she /has/ a CPN.
It’s late. Need to grab some z’s next to the phone.
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October, 21st, 2014
Fluro Fridays: Bondi Beach surfers fighting depression - BBC News
:)
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October, 20th, 2014
Apart from the bradgate mental health unit, what other inpatient facilities are available for residents of Leicestershire and Rutland? Is this the only unit J can go to? Can you not transfer her? How do others in the area compare from what you've been reading into? I'm aware that the bennion centre has an eating disorder unit but is that, with the BMHU, all that your region has access to inpatient wise? Thank you for any information you can give me.
Anonymous
Hi, not sure how long ago you sent this. This app hides lots of stuff, apologies for delay.
Thankfully J is home, good days and bad days and I’m trying not let my dismay at the local services get the best of me. Little steps. Lucy-cat makes a big difference.
I doubt the local eating disorder service would have her back, and I don’t think J would return there. She says they basically replaced her Anorexia with Bulimia (many years ago), which for her is a sort of living death - the pills do not help with weight, either. With regards to specially dedicated services, I’m not completely up to date with current options for referral in Leics - every time I hear about a service it seems to be about to close or there’s a two year waiting list. The local group therapy for personality disorders doesn’t seem appropriate either, and she’s tried some rather tough psychodynamic (?) at a place where overpaid academics just give you abuse from what I can tell. ;) I’m encouraging her to think about having a counsellor who has nothing to do with this NHS Trust. The good news is that she’s getting on with her CPN, despite the history between them and my letter exchanges with him. She’s applied to have all her records sent to her. It should be interesting with regards to diagnosis prejudice, but I’m also worried the effect reading the notes will have on us both. Sometimes, it’s better not to know.
We’re still waiting for the response to our complaint regarding professionals failing to keep her safe when she needed help the most, before the big overdose.
I’ll be posting the recent response to my letter about her poor ward care. The response was fairly dismissive and came from the highest point in the chain. I still feel that this organisation is repeatedly failing her in unprofessional ways and they have never acknowledged this on any level. We’re also waiting for her Care Plan Meeting / CPA.
Hopefully, the community team will still start talking to her as if she’s grown-up and not a naughty child - if not, I want her to get the hell out. The only problem is the drugs - she’s on so many pills, which get tweaked and the side effects are pretty bad (like with her swollen legs). We need the psychiatrist consultant to okay these pills, especially since her GP feels very out of his depth.
(I may edit this at a later date, depending upon how much information about J we want to be on public view)
I’m behind on contacting a support group for carers for myself, but frankly, we need another organisation like we need a hole in the head. Hey, trepanning, no there’s an idea…!
Incidentally, anyone reading this wanting to know about mental health services and charities in Leicestershire would do well to check out the directory on the LAMP website. http://www.lampdirect.org.uk
Thanks. :)
Thankfully J is home, good days and bad days and I’m trying not let my dismay at the local services get the best of me. Little steps. Lucy-cat makes a big difference.
I doubt the local eating disorder service would have her back, and I don’t think J would return there. She says they basically replaced her Anorexia with Bulimia (many years ago), which for her is a sort of living death - the pills do not help with weight, either. With regards to specially dedicated services, I’m not completely up to date with current options for referral in Leics - every time I hear about a service it seems to be about to close or there’s a two year waiting list. The local group therapy for personality disorders doesn’t seem appropriate either, and she’s tried some rather tough psychodynamic (?) at a place where overpaid academics just give you abuse from what I can tell. ;) I’m encouraging her to think about having a counsellor who has nothing to do with this NHS Trust. The good news is that she’s getting on with her CPN, despite the history between them and my letter exchanges with him. She’s applied to have all her records sent to her. It should be interesting with regards to diagnosis prejudice, but I’m also worried the effect reading the notes will have on us both. Sometimes, it’s better not to know.
We’re still waiting for the response to our complaint regarding professionals failing to keep her safe when she needed help the most, before the big overdose.
I’ll be posting the recent response to my letter about her poor ward care. The response was fairly dismissive and came from the highest point in the chain. I still feel that this organisation is repeatedly failing her in unprofessional ways and they have never acknowledged this on any level. We’re also waiting for her Care Plan Meeting / CPA.
Hopefully, the community team will still start talking to her as if she’s grown-up and not a naughty child - if not, I want her to get the hell out. The only problem is the drugs - she’s on so many pills, which get tweaked and the side effects are pretty bad (like with her swollen legs). We need the psychiatrist consultant to okay these pills, especially since her GP feels very out of his depth.
(I may edit this at a later date, depending upon how much information about J we want to be on public view)
I’m behind on contacting a support group for carers for myself, but frankly, we need another organisation like we need a hole in the head. Hey, trepanning, no there’s an idea…!
Incidentally, anyone reading this wanting to know about mental health services and charities in Leicestershire would do well to check out the directory on the LAMP website. http://www.lampdirect.org.uk
Thanks. :)
October, 20th, 2014
Mental health: The £8bn cost of poor care for new mothers - BBC News
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October, 11, 2014
Complaint Response Letter
A response to one of our complaints to the Leics NHS Partnership has finally arrived. There has been quite a delay. I won’t go into specific details tonight. It was regarding J’s poor ward care, the 13 nights not in a bed, and a list of other basic ward based problems. It wasn’t intended as a complaint originally, just a rant to the hospital managers.
There is barely an acknowledgement of the misery suffered by J. In summary, it feels like “it’s tough but this is the way it is” explanation. It does use words like “unfortunate” in the context of special circumstances, basically other wards being closed due to rain damage. It talks about bed availability, but it still feels very removed from the day-to-day problems on a ward. Again, it feels displaced and dysfunctional. Like talking to a spreadsheet. I’ll post it in full with the names blanked out soon.
No empathy. No accountability.
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October, 10, 2014
'It's a national scandal': 15 stories which show the state of mental health care in the UK | UK news | theguardian.com
(From Sane Charity’s Facebook feed.)
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=744729345598772&id=111493462255700
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