Friends in the UK

[Jikan]

I've noticed many of our community members are from the UK and I found this article concerning mental health care in England in this mornings' BBC America newspaper. The link is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7608452.stm

Some of you may find it interesting.

Michael

[Frank303]

My father worked 40 years at a psychiatric hospital, which was closed due to the migration to care in the community. Increasingly psychiatric hospitals are crammed full of people with 'recreational' drug problems which defers a lot of care from other patients.
The acute admissions, where my mate works as a nurse and another mate as a social worker is almost fully populated with patients with problems due to drugs and alcohol.
It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if it does get better.

[bernie40]

Hi,

I have to say that i also agree with the report.  In a sense because we are not "paying" for our treatment we don't really have a say.  A standard waiting list to see a psychiatrist is over 3 months, longer for a psychologist.  We do not have a choice of who to see as we are referred by our general practitioner to the mental health team within our area.  In my area there are currently 3 psychiatrists.  Our medication is behind that of America and in my personal experience they do not like to give a "cocktail" of medication to bipolar patients.

Our psychiatrists our over-worked and under payed and many of them end up going on long term sick, which of course doesn't help with continuity of care.  There is a crisis team number - when I have used it i was told the psych would ring me back - she didn't, several hours later I rang again and finally spoke to her.  I had told the crisis team that i had recently come off citalopram 60mg and was experience sever agitation and thoughts of suicide!!

We cannot walk into an A&E department and ask to be hospitalized.  

So overall, it is not the best service.  However, i am not knocking the people who work within the service and i do appreciate having our NHS as it does mean that everybody gets treated and it is not dependent on your insurance cover.

There is still a lot to be learned in many areas not just mental health.  I certainly wouldn't want to be the one who decides which service gets the funding etc

Thanks for letting us know about the report, if i had the energy i would write in to them and carry the story further.

All the best.

[John_jb1]

Hello,

Yeah I'm from the UK. I do agree with quite abit of that. We are treated like "second class citizens"

Thanks for that, it was really interesting.

- John -