Monday 15 December is the date given for local areas across the country to have their mental health crisis care plans in place to ensure blanket coverage right across England by the end of the year.
Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb wants to see mental health crises treated with the same urgency and respect given to physical emergencies:
Too often people in crisis face being locked up in police cells. This can be a deeply traumatising experience. This is not a failing of the police, but it is the way the system traditionally works. If you get picked up by the police in a moment of crisis, perhaps late in the evening, the default has often been to put you in a cell overnight.
Read his recent GOV.UK article to find out how joint crisis care plans between the police and local health and care services can improve health outcomes, placing people in the right care environments and saving time and resources too.
If you are involved in the preparation of declarations and action plans in your area, do let us know how your region will be providing support for those suffering mental health crises.
You can respond using the comment function below or submit your own guest blog for consideration to this email address: mark.osterloh@dh.gsi.gov.uk
4 comments
Comment by Joan Goodger posted on
I worked in prison education for many years (women's prison). I witnessed many occasions where officers were putting people in the segregation unit and being on 24-hour constant watch. Clearly these women should have been in the care of a mental health unit and NOT in prison.
This was 15 years ago - what lessons have we learnt from this in 2014 ?
Joan Goodger - Birmingham, West Midlands
Comment by Pearl Baker posted on
I am in London on the 5th January 2015 to show everyone what it is really like for the Mentaly ill in the Community. No Care Plans, living in filth and squalor and who really cares.
My 'Follow my Journey for Mental Health' will start in Newbury Berkshire, continue to London, outside Parliament 11 to 3.30 continuing to No 10 Downing Street to deliver my 'Journal' this Journal contains many sad stories collected during my advocacy and advisory service. (Provided free) for nearly thirty years.
Visit me and friends outside Parliament and view the Photos of the real world that the Mentally ill endure.
Comment by shurleea posted on
Mental health cares systems follow procedures but do not provide care. One 'on call' psychiatrists is available to cover a vast area and they call that 'care'!
Go to A&E, get stuck in a room on your own, wait hours for the on call psychiatrist then get dumped back on the streets.
Mental health cares teams cover their owns backs, most patents are assessed by nurses who do not have the knowledge or skill todo a proper assessment, all clinics are slowed over Christmas, and even during 'normal times' the useless psychiatrist only capable of issuing yet another useless prescription, decides when he / she will see the patient … if I am physically unwell I can see my GP at anytime, in mental health she shrink decides when he / she will see the patient … and they call that care!
Patients that need extra support are seen as troublesome because the service does not have the facilities time or inspiration to try and meet the patents needs … they just keep the conveyor belt moving!
The only thing you will guarantee to get from a psychiatrist is yet another prescription, that with a bit opt luck, will need your misery once and for all.
there is no mental health care, all psychiatric services should be open 24/7 over Christmas, if they cannot provide a proper care service then get rid of psychiatrists … anyone can be a psychiatrist, buy yourself the ICD10 and a BNF, that is all they use, a multiple choice quiz and a book o f labels and a list of medications …. but where is the care?
Nobody really cares, all these systems put in place mean nothing, leaving suicide as the only war blanket of comfort ion offer.
Talk is cheap, policies protect the so called 'care providers' but when you are at your wits end, don't expect anyone to care!
Comment by joe hannigan posted on
It is rarely easy to diagnose some person gathered in from a public place who may be distressed,intoxicated,bleeding, vomiting, uncooperative and accompanied by unsavoury evening companions. As an ex-chargenurse(RMN and SRN) I do not want them on my ward or in my A & E dept....unless I have the resources appropriate? As a retd ex-ASW I needed the support of ambulance/ police resources to arrange assessment and treatment 'though if actual crime is a factor then other considerations are made
What is needed is an unbreakable code of professionalism by ALL services and things can get done speedily in a way that best matches the case.