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My Recent NHS Experience


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I telephoned Liverpool's Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Service (also known as "the crisis team"), based at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, as I was in need of help and intervention and I was - as described by them, later - in a highly distressed state. The "help" that I received was to be told that nothing was available to me unless I was a risk of harm to myself or a danger to my life, which I was not. According to their advice, if it is outside of office hours - which it was - you must (unfortunately) reach either of these stages before you can receive any form of help from the NHS, here.


I ignored the advice and called in to speak to the hospital's mental health team, personally. The two counsellors, who I spoke to, could not believe what I had been told on the telephone.


One of the main factors that had contributed to my distressed state was that my OCD symptoms had been bad for a while and, for a while, I had not received any news regarding the follow-up psychotherapy that I was promised that I would receive following my hospital discharge, over three months previously, despite my enquiries to my CMHT. The Service said that they would arrange for someone to call me on the following day to update me, but despite their promise, I did not receive any phone call. I found that to be an insult due to the fact that a fair amount of my distress was caused by the fact that no one had called me in the first place to advise me about my treatment.


My distress continued over the next few days due to my OCD and I called in to speak with the Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Service again. This time, they said that they would get me an urgent appointment with my psychiatrist and have my Community Mental Health Team increase their input - neither of these things happened.


My distress was recurring and increasing and I called my Care Co-ordinator to try to access help and was told that I was receiving help as I was on a (very long) waiting list for psychotherapy and I was going to have my medication changed to clomipramine (the gold-standard treatment for OCD). I said, quite correctly, that this "help" was inadequate for my present situation.


On the fifth day, due to my continued distress, I had reached my breaking point, which lead to an incident happening. A few hours later, my worried mother called my psychiatrist to explain the situation and to get advice. I took the call instead, but my psychiatrist didn't seem interested and was more concerned about telling me that I had an upcoming medication review and said that she would prescribe me some diazepam to calm me down (!)


The Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Service has recently been disbanded and, I was told by my Care Co-ordinator, has been replaced by a two-person-run telephone service, based at the Broadoak Unit (hospital), who will do home visits if necessary. The reality will be that these two nurses will be unable to cope with the volume of calls for help and will be unavailable to most people who try to use the service.


My recent experience of the NHS has been very poor, and, as my previous paragraph illustrates, it just seems to be getting worse and worse.

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I have recently been given appointments with a psychologist from my Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) - which is a very good thing for me. Perhaps, now, I may say that the NHS isn't so bad after all... But I won't. I'm just one of the very lucky ones who are receiving appropriate treatment - and I had to fight and get to a bad state to get it. It's also what I am entitled to and what the NHS should be delivering. Unfortunately, there are so many who are not getting the right, or appropriate, treatment and so, because of that, I still say that the NHS is providing a poor service. And, that's putting it politely.

Edited by Blue Water
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