18th Day of Lent: Going without respite beds, going with fake extra capacity

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John writes: “Ashcroft is a female residential unit which provides support to people who, due to mental health difficulties, need periods of residential care. For many, regular planned respite for short periods forms a key part of their care plan. This respite enables them to build their resilience, access therapies and talk to familiar staff […]

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17th Day of Lent: Going without…. Transparently recruited and democratically appointed directors and senior managers

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James writes: “This ‘Trust’ ironically instils no trust whatsoever in the minds of the jobbing clinicians and admin staff. Senior executives and new ‘associate’ directors are tripping over each other while nurses run wards and woefully inadequate community teams with skeleton staffing.” “Most of us don’t recall seeing advertisements for any associate director posts, nor

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16th Day of Lent: Going without care in the community

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Ruth writes: “As a carer it is a relief to be able to access the campaign’s website to access information about the impact of perceived cuts in funding. We carers need to prepare ourselves for a future where the care of loved ones living in the community with life-long mental health needs will receive a

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15th Day of Lent: Going without 25% of already overstretched commmunity teams

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Karen says: “Gateway House, our ‘The Office’-esque building on a business park in Wymondham which has no facilities whatsoever to see service users, is currently home to leaving cards, bunting and endless leaving do’s. By the end of March, around one quarter of our colleagues in already overstretched community teams will have been paid to

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14th Day of Lent: EDP – Going without access to treatment even if you’re staff

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This is quite the most shocking story from the excellent Adam Gretton of the EDP. “A mental health worker has revealed how she tried to take her own life during a two-month wait to get an appointment with a community team after she was signed off sick.” Click the image below to read more. Whether you

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12th Day of Lent: Going without safe staffing of hostels

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‘Still a nurse’ writes: “One hostel of 4 beds is already closed, and the staff have all been redeployed to other wards. 9 beds remain but staffed from the CRHT so no longer in the same function it was before. And this was no redesign, just the shambles of counting staff in numbers of other

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10th Day of Lent: Going without services which have saved my life

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Victoria writes: “In 2003 I had a breakdown. My Mother had to take me to my GP’s surgery, as he refused a home visit. As I paced up & down the receptionist appeared & asked me to go into a private room as “I was upsetting” other patients. It took 3 days of hell before

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8th Day of Lent: Going without enough beds for young people

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“However, there are still not enough mental health beds for young people on a local and national level, according to a new report commissioned by Healthwatch Norfolk. Experts from the University of East Anglia interviewed patients, commissioners, and mental health workers for the review. They concluded that patients felt that there was a lack of

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7th Day of Lent: Going without Suffolk MIND’s local support

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Jane told us: “A group of people in a small Suffolk town came together in a local church hall. Until this group started I was told how lonely and isolated one man felt. He told me they drank coffee, learnt a little about each other and made friends. They were supported by mental health professional

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Sixth Day of Lent: Going without… £24,993 wasted on a new NSFT website

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We’ve been having a look at the new, unlaunched and supposedly-hidden Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) website. We know from a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request that NSFT paid £25,000 for its new website as follows: “Supplier – Cloud2 Limited Design Cost £9,350.00 Development Cost £11,050.00 Deployment Cost £4,600.00 Total Cost £25,000.00″

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4th Day of Lent: Going without mandatory training required for professional registration

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Peter writes: “I am significantly out of date for essential training updates which are a legal requirement for my continuing professional registration. I’ve had training requests repeatedly ignored in order that ‘the ward’ is not left unsafely staffed. Missing out on key training on use of the defibrillator, the prevention and management of aggression, safeguarding

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3rd Day of Lent: Going without… dedicated Assertive Outreach (AO) teams

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Dr Geraldine Strathdee, NHS England’s national clinical director for mental health recently told Community Care: “I know there are a number [of Trusts] saying ‘we won’t have a crisis/home treatment team. Instead we’ll put that crisis team function, or that assertive outreach function, into generic services’. I’d urge anyone going with that approach to really

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2nd Day of Lent: Going without adequate resources, reliable appointments or reasonable waiting times

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Footyfan says: “When is this NHS Trust going to realise that whilst community-based care and treatment is great and looks to be the way forward, they must provide adequate resources for it to work? As a family that accesses this service I have to say the organisation of it is terrible; we worked out the

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1st Day of Lent: Going without a face-to-face consultation with a psychiatrist for a whole year but being prescribed high potency mood-stabilisers anyway.

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Rachel writes: “Meeting face-to-face with your psychiatrist is not for a chat. A consultation is imperative if the patient is to fully understand the nature of any medications they are prescribed and the possible and potentially very dangerous side-effects. The psychiatrist also has an opportunity to further know their patient and assess if the prescription

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