Parting shots – Why I left my social work post and what I’d change
“While I don’t regret leaving, not really, I do wish I’d been listened to more. That more than anything, would have led me to stay.” CB describes the pressures on social workers from cuts and successive reorganisations, and why some have to leave the profession they love.
Mind the gap
“There appears to have been an overwhelming sense within the mental health profession that the programme unfairly portrayed the mental health profession.
“As a police officer I watched the show and thought ‘Welcome to my Saturday night’.” Nathan Constable responds to Panorama’s programme on people being ‘locked-up for being mentally ill’.
The Government considers itself to be above the law
“…they have not stopped, they have not listened and they have not been reasonable. Ever felt like your Government is really out to get you?” kittysjones explains how the Government is refusing to respond to legal rulings challenging its welfare reforms.
Trying to work but living below subsistence level
“What a shame it is that the welfare system is not designed to facilitate those people who want to work, even if only part time, but instead makes it impossible for them to work.” The Masked AMHP tells the story of a couple who typify the unintended consequences of recent welfare changes.
Compassion in mental health reporting
Ask me about what I would change about societal attitutes towards mental health issues and I’d have a long, long list. However, pretty close to the top of the list would be addressing the attitude of the media towards mental health. Yesterday I was sat reading my Twitter feed when I saw the following from […]
What do you call a person who receives mental health services?
There are people who have had bad experiences of mental health services – you only have to look in the comments sections of my posts on this blog to find people who have nothing good to say about mental health services - who would answer “victim”. (I just thought I’d get that in first). But this […]
So we’ve raised awareness about mental health, what’s next?
Summary I’m hearing a lot of noise, but not seeing much action on healthcare delivery As I mentioned earlier this year, recovery from my mental health crisis seems a long way away. Little seems to have changed health-wise. Being trapped by inertia is one thing, but having next-to-no support from the NHS in this field is […]
A foot in both camps
Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed following @Northwestdoc. It has struck me that much of what Dr Holmes as said has rung true with what I have been saying and, coming from a medical professional, this really interested me. I wanted to know more so I asked Dr Holmes to write a guest […]
Room to breathe in defence of the NHS
“We need to engage with the already existing, vibrant user-led movements and NHS workers challenging conventional mental health care and think about what these movements could offer for health care as a whole.” Ramona argues that we can criticise NHS mental health care at the same time as making the case for why privatisation would be worse.
Should professionals write publicly about real cases?
I had a very interesting and thought provoking email correspondence with a reader of The Masked AMHP blog recently. The reader initially found the accounts on the blog of real situations interesting and at times amusing, but then started to think about how they would feel if they were reading about themselves. The reader raised […]
So who is in charge?!
Here’s what’s wrong with mental health care in the UK << he modestly claimed! No one is in charge of it – at all. It’s not a system – it’s a coincidence. You might want to pop the kettle on before you tackle this one! You’ve only got to follow the @Twitter feeds of a few MH trust Chief […]
The other way around
The ever wonderful and erudite @MentalHealthCop has written this superb blog as his statement to the Care Quality Commission ahead of their review of Emergency Mental Health Care. Michael really has covered just about everything that needs to be said but I have a few observations of my own. Broadly speaking these can be condensed into two […]
Male mental health
There are various things going on at the moment that got me thinking about male mental health. Here are a range of different issues that have hit my radar over the last few years: 1. We know that around 75% of suicides are men – we also know that men are less likely to seek help when […]
In the shoes of… Alison Cameron, Patient leader & active citizen – Part 2
The first part of Alison’s story can be found on the Whose Shoes? site here. Alison Cameron - Half Life - Part 2 Alison on a ‘Sailaway’ holiday that played a significant part in her road to recovery… I started in small ways after having the seed of hope planted by hearing the inspirational Doctor Rachel Perkins speak. I […]
One step forward - one step back?
Today, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary have published a joint report with the Care Quality Commission, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and HM Inspectorate of Prisons into the use of police cells for persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. This matter has been subject to increasing scrutiny over recent years as there have been a number of […]
Delays and more delays: The College of Social Work AMHP Practice Survey 2013
It’s official: Mental Health Act Assessments are beset with unacceptable delays all over the country (or at least England). That’s the message from The College of Social Work’s recent AMHP Practice Survey, the results of which were released at the end of May. And it’s the AMHP’s (and of course the patients) who are suffering the […]
Why the #Woolwich murder is almost certainly not about #mentalhealth
The events that took place in Woolwich yesterday [Tuesday] were truly shocking, tragic and indefensible. A young man killed in the street by two individuals, apparently motivated by Islamist extremism. Scrolling through the responses on both new and old media has been a depressing stream of bloviating blowhards, all rushing to insist that the tragedy […]
You don’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone
From July 2012-February 2013, I was a CAMHS service user. I saw the consultant psychiatrist 4 times, an assistant psychologist 5 times and the CPN a few times a month. During this time I would also see my GP at her request, sometimes every week or sometimes every 2 weeks. Never more than 2 weeks […]
I say, I say
“I say, I say. My wife’s gone to Northern Italy.” “Genoa?” “I should think so, We’ve been married for 20 years.” Can you remember jokes like this? Harmless and mildly amusing now but if read out by Tommy Cooper they would have the house roaring in laughter? Let me try one. “I say. I say. […]
My reaction to Adebowale
I thought myself very privileged to have been on the list of people to receive an embargoed copy of the Adebowale Report on Friday morning, two hours before the world saw it. Although I was due to be at work on an EARLY shift, I had made mental arrangements to prioritise reading it amidst my various duties, […]