35th Day of Lent: Going without an assessment for three months and then given an appointment more three hours away by public transport

Diss to Queen Elizabeth Hospital 3 hours by public transport

‘S’ writes:

“One of my neighbours lives in South Norfolk, in the Diss area. He has been under under-65 services for many years as he has suffered from the enduring mental health issue of depression. This ebbs and flows; this year he is very low in mood, he was discharged from the service because they felt he was not engaging well enough with the service – he is depressed and struggles to get motivated! Within 2 weeks he was struggling even more. A Crisis referral was made to the services – two months later he was asked to attend the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital in Norwich –  No CMHN allocated, NO medication changes, his wife feels completely at a loss about what to do.

Yesterday 3 months after his GP referral he has been offered a ‘chat’ with a member of the adult team in KING’S LYNN … remember he lives in DISS.

Not sure If I can understand the reasoning on this, or am I missing something? So the moral of the tale is:

  • Boot off unwell people as they don’t comply, they’re too ill
  • Don’t accept a referral in the first place
  • Make a new response target of 2 months.
  • Make an appointment 3 months after a GP referral and make it at the northernmost place in the county you live in!
  • Maybe the patient won’t make the appointment to come to the hospital as they are so ill they might fail to turnn up; so close referral, send GP a patient did not attend letter.

Or am I still being cynical? And yes, I did not make this story up, I know this man, he is my neighbour. And the letter asking him to attend King’s Lynn does exist…”

1 thought on “35th Day of Lent: Going without an assessment for three months and then given an appointment more three hours away by public transport”

  1. This is one of the most crucial issues – prompt, early access to help in a human, warm manner. The Trust must accept that the Access and Assessment Team has been a failure; bring back the link workers ( a mental health practitioner based with your local GP ), backed up by mental health social workers based in Primary Care, backed up by strategically placed, open access emergency psychiatric clinics. How many expensive Mental Health Act assessments and emergency admissions to expensive private hospitals would this save; Come on, what about a pilot project?

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