Tomorrow evening, on Tuesday 7th June 2016, we will be protesting at the failure to invite service users, carers and professionals to an event the purpose of which is said to be finding ‘affordable, innovative new solutions’ to mental health. We will be assembling outside St Michael at Plea in Norwich from 5.45 p.m. A location map is below.
Despite endless cuts to mental health budgets, the RSA claims ‘Throwing money we don’t have at a problem that just won’t go away is not the answer.’ We absolutely disagree. Mental health services have been subject to vicious and highly discriminatory cuts in comparison to physical health. If mental health had received the same levels of funding increases as Norfolk’s largest physical health trust, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) would have an annual budget a staggering £70m higher than it receives today. Mental health has suffered cuts of 20% relative to physical health. As services have been cut, unexpected deaths have risen. This isn’t a problem that ‘just won’t go away’. It is a problem that has been created by cuts and discrimination.
We asked for representation on the panel but were refused.
The panel does include representatives from:
- Healthwatch, which, despite claiming to be the ‘consumer champion in health and care’, plush offices and an annual budget of £600,000 per year, failed to speak out about the collapse of community services, the transportation of hundreds of people in crisis across the country and dramatic rises in unexpected deaths. Instead, it commented on the font used in the NSFT annual report;
- Norwich & Central Norfolk Mind, which backed the disastrous radical redesign cuts, supposedly on behalf of all the voluntary organisations in Norfolk, and took the opportunity to pitch its ‘services’. It has conspicuously failed to speak out about the appalling cuts to mental health services; and
- NSFT’s Board, which wasted millions of pounds and destroyed mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Join us tomorrow to challenge the cuts and the lack of genuine representation:
The “pretend all is okay” Norfolk establishment pretending the mental health crisis had nothing to do with them and their unwillingness to pay taxes. They arrogantly pretend they are the solution while excluding people with lived experience or expertise. Are the do-gooders going to propose the mental health equivalent of food banks? The voluntary sector has to stop colluding with the cuts and privatization of the NHS.
Yes the ” Third Sector ” should be the third sector not the first. There is a role for voluntary organizations but they should be the cream on top of a state-run NHS fully professional, safe mental health service which is consistent across the country. We have the knowledge and experience to know what a good mental health service looks like, especially if we really listen to those who use the service. Let’s not go back to Victorian times when the poor were dependent on the whims of rich philanthropists.
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