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Your chance to speak out on changes to the NHS
Posted Thursday 21 April 2011
Mind’s Chief Executive Paul Farmer met with David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Andrew Lansley and other voluntary sector representatives last week to discuss the Government’s 'pause' in reforming the health system.
Earlier this year, before the ‘pause’, we asked you to share your views on some of the changes proposed for health, social care and public health, which many of you did. A huge thank you to all those who filled out our online surveys or came to our focus groups on the proposals. We pulled together your opinions and experiences in a series of consultations to the Government on each area: health, social care and public health. Read a summary of our recommendations (you can download Mind’s consultation responses in full from this page).
Now this is an even greater chance to get your voice heard. Paul Farmer has been asked to be a member of the NHS Future Forums group: the collection of people overseeing the Government's 'listening exercise'. The Future Forum group is responsible for discussing the changes with NHS staff, patients and communities and passing their comments and concerns directly to the Prime Minister.
Mind represented people with direct experience of mental distress when we responded to the Government’s consultations, but this process was focussed on the technical detail of the proposals. Now we have an opportunity to really voice your concerns about the health reforms as a whole; this is a chance for the Government to listen to the views of patients and service users, not just those of health professionals, around changes you'd like to see in the NHS and how healthcare services could be more responsive to patients’ voices.
If passed as it stands, the current Health and Social Care Bill will make the biggest changes to the health system since the creation of the NHS in 1948. This is a crucial time to have your say. Tell us what you think: answer our short online survey or attend a focus group. Your views are essential to ensuring Mind argues for changes based on evidence from people with mental health problems.
Fill in our survey
Mind's short online survey consists of 16 questions and is entirely anonymous. It will close on 13 May 2011.
The first eight questions are open to anyone who has ever used a health service; the second eight are specifically for those with experience of mental distress. If you are only able to complete the first half of the survey, we’d still really welcome your views. > Take the survey
Want to help us more?
We are also looking to have telephone conversations (30-45 minutes) with individuals who have experience of mental distress about their views on the reforms, particularly on:
- GPs commissioning mental health services
- service users designing what mental health services look like
- your experience of trying to access different services
Please email my colleague Vicki Ensor if you would like to be involved or call her on 020 8215 2223. > Email Vicki
Nisha Makan, Mind Policy and Campaigns Officer
8 Comments
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'Patients voices'? We have entered the era of 'involvement' not 'user involvement' or 'patient involvement', and this 'involvement' has to be through specific Trust groups, no individual voices allowed with 'champion's' modifying or censoring what people can and can't say.
All these 'consultation' exercises are meaningless because central government do whatever they have decided to do and commissioners don't argue. 'Reform' is the new euphemism for paring to the bone and rationing. There is less 'voice' in services now than ever before, there is no choice. Try accessing a service now, unless you're hanging from a tree no one wants to know and even then some people taken from the top of car parks are spending nights in police cells because there is no crisis service. Access should not be dependent on being in a far worse state than ever before, nor on 'outcomes', think about it, palliative care don't have recovery outcomes. Where is need in all this? Not diagnosis, not fixed outcomes, not having to be sectionable, but plain NEED.
Talking therapies is time limited CBT and social care is a joke. Mental health services won't deal with housing or benefits, GP's won't deal with X or Y, people now have to go between several agencies for different things with each saying it's the other agencies responsibility. For those who can't make 20 phone calls or visit several different agencies what do you think happens to them?
There was more choice [and time] when we had the old style asylums, never thought I'd say that. The social worker and CPN would deal with social and health issues. You have to be really competent to get through services now because it's an obstacle course -
So the RCP's position on health reform and cuts? None, just contact your MP or councillor if you're not happy.
The RCP's position on ATOS/workfare, stunning silence. Try asking for a position statement.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/26/nhs-reform-live-blog-mental-health
Reality: http://www.disabilitynow.org.uk/living/features/organised-chaos-cuts-leave-lives-in-crisis
Will the Suicide Prevention Strategy address the problem of government policy causing suicide... -
Shame on you MIND for joining forces with Government agencies!
How can disabled people have their benefits taken away from them and forced onto JSA, when there are no jobs even for able bodied people!
The government is raking money back from these people, causing some of them absolute misery.
Why could there not be options for those who feel able, to go to work? Why force those who are not ready for work onto the scrapheap?
How demoralising must it be to have to say they are on the 'dole', with no hope of ever finding 'proper' work. Some of these poor souls will end up like slaves - having to work whether they are up to it or not, and believe me, they will be exploited!
You should be protecting their interests, not cosying yourselves up to government ministers, basking in your own self-importance.
I will NEVER donate anything to you again - and there are many others like me, who are hugely disappointed in you!
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As it was clear some time ago that the mental health services decided who was or who was not worthy of help, NHS reforms mean nothing to me. If the best you can hope for in a crisis is a night in a police cell (a nice white room with blue mattress) then it will not surpise me if people give up altogether. If you are suicidal and don't get help, then who is getting it? I know there are good people working in the system but I fear they become frustrated with certain patients who either annoy them or they beleive are lazy and don't help themselves. I also blame the 'wellbeing brigade' which trivialises mental illness. Can you imagine someone with a recurring physical illness who is turned away because the treatment was not effective? Or their lifestyle was blamed for their condition so they are no longer worthy of treatment?
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There's pressure on professionals with threats of removing funding if people don't have recovery plans about getting back to work
People are also having benefits stopped in some instances if they do voluntary work as this is evidence of being fit for work. -
Chrissie - I'm really sorry that's the way you feel.
Mind is fighting hard to ensure that people are assessed fairly for benefits and that their mental health is fully taken into account. We have been very public in our criticism of the current assessment and the impact that incorrect decisions can have on people’s lives.
We are also pushing for back-to-work and in-work support that effectively helps people overcome the barriers they face and find meaningful employment, where appropriate. We are opposed to the increased conditionality and sanctioning that the Government is looking to introduce.
As for 'cosying up to the government', Mind seeks NEVER to compromise our independence in this way. The fact remains that if we are explicitly asked to input the views of those with experience of mental distress and we choose not to engage, we are diminishing patient voice further.
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I think the comment about benefits was important. I was told I had to re-apply for my benefits, and then the DWP told me that I was no longer entitled to them as I was working. I told them trhat I was only doing unpaid work and less than 15 hours per week. They then apologized and said that i was entitled to benefits. Their excuse at one point was that they had got me mixed up with somebody else.
I am also concerned about personalized budgets as they mean that I shall not get all my mental health services automatically but shall have to buy into them. I am worried that I shall not be able to manage my own budget. -
the goverment should remember to look after the ill the poor n the vunrable.instead there slowly making them or us disapear ..buckinghamshire needs to stand n campaigne .ure road shows should come to our carnival or south east cmht working together with all m.h.orgs and invite m.ps to to a table of ask mp questions n sighn potitions ect ect on day n hand it too the top qeens counciler chief justice by hand .ill do it if u stand with me suport me on day n ...stamp out stigma campaign in my area ?hon sir greeve .i will invite as guest mp qc..he visits bucks often n has conserns on nhs cutt n mistakes n mental health charges he sorted out as i asked him to do for bucks services ,,our derby day is 28 may r u roadshow available ?
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