Community Mental Health - a rant!

Some of you may know the difficulties I have had in the past with our local CMHT. Briefly, they messed up good and proper - blocked my access to psychology for a variety of spurious reasons, one care coordinator dropped me like a stone with no explanation and without informing me, failed to respond to emails, letters, phone calls, failed to allocate me a new care co-ordinator, etc etc. I made a formal complaint, had my psychologist agreeing that I was not in the wrong over being dropped, but all contact with CMHT was very difficult. Eventually I was allocated to Sue and, barring one problem in communication, things have been OK since then. She wrote a care plan for me (one had not been created prior to this, despite a year long contact with CMHT services) and was due to give this to me.

However, at the start of June (the day before I was due to see her for our regular monthly meeting) she broke her ankle. I had a letter informing me of her absence and asking me to contact M, the head of CMHT, should my symptoms deteriorate. So, when they did, I emailed her. Her response answered my query about the likely date of Sue's return (no earlier than 11th July and probably later) but made no mention of my struggles. At the end of June I emailed her again describing how hard I was finding things and asking for suggestions as to what I could do. I had no response. I emailed her again last week. This time she outlined part of my care plan -

Apparently there is an agreement with your GP that
you could see their in-house counsellor;

To use the people in your social circle for support

You have used voluntary organisations like the Samaritans in the
past, and to consider these as an option

Church contacts

Access to emailing, which you do

I hope that this helps, if not will be back on Monday 9/7/07. It may be
difficult for me to allocate someone to visit you monthly as Sue was
doing at this time.

Well, the GP counsellor has a huge waiting list and I have still not heard from her. I am doing all the other things on my list - though the emailing (to CMHT)doesn't seem that helpful without a response. Basically they have washed their hands of me and are not even attempting to meet their side of the care plan. It feels very much as if I am still being punished for having dared to make a complaint 18 months ago - as I have just emailed M to explain.

ARGH!

As I pointed out to her, my final psychotherapy appointment is due to take place this week; I am still dealing with returning to work after a long absence; my GP has just gone on annual leave for 2-3 weeks and my pastor and his wife are about to go on holiday next week.

ARGH again.

I hate CMHT.