Mental health services slammed

Wednesday, 07 January 2009

By Jenny Clover

PATIENTS have slammed the service they receive from a mental health trust in a damning official survey.

People who use the mental health services provided by the South London and Maudsley NHS trust (SLaM) have delivered the embarrassing blow via the Healthcare Commission – in the same year the trust controversially shut the world-class emergency clinic at the Maudsley Hospital.

The commission’s 2008 patient survey shows SLaM is performing worse than other trusts in five of 11 key areas – including support in the community and crisis care.

Tom White, who campaigned to keep the Maudsley’s emergency clinic open, and fellow Southwark Pensioners Action Group member Tony Farsky, said the results were “very concerning”.

He said: “These are the very facilities we were promised would be got right before the Maudsley’s emergency clinic and the Felix Post Unit (FPU) were shut.

"But this survey seems to show that these services aren’t up to scratch at all.

“Things like support in the community and knowing who you can call in a crisis are very important, especially now the clinic has closed and the FPU is threatened.”

The Healthcare Commission asked 850 users to fill in the survey and 202 responded.

SLaM performed worse than other trusts in:

- Community support.

- Crisis care (for emergencies out of office hours).

- Patients being given, and understanding, a care plan for their mental health needs, and being involved in deciding it.

- Support for family members and carers.

- Overall views and experience of SLaM.

Patients said SLaM performed about as well as other mental health trusts in six areas:

- Seeing a psychiatrist.

- Seeing a community psychiatric nurse.

- How medications are given out.

- Therapy.

- Care co-ordination.

- Care reviews.

A SLaM spokesman said: “We are working hard to address the areas that have been highlighted as poor.

“We are committed to improving the quality of care for people with mental health and substance misuse problems.

“That achievement was recognised by the fact that SLaM was one of 12 mental health trusts in England to achieve the highest ratings in the 2007/08 national assessment of health service performance conducted by the Healthcare Commission.”

Email: jenny.clover@slp.co.uk

---

Share on Facebook

Be the first to comment using the form below.

Submit your comment below :
Your Name (required) :

Your Email*(required) :

Your Location (required) :

Your Comment (required) :

Maximum Number of characters for this text box is 400.

You have 400 characters remaining for your description...

I agree to the terms and conditions and comment rules (required) :

The South London Press may not publish all comments.
Your comments may be published on any Tindle Newspaper Ltd. media.
*Your email address will not be displayed.

Enter the code as it is shown below (required):