Local Mental Health Services at Risk.

At the Pathways Group on 10th April, we were asked to give our views of what was good and what could be improved in our local mental health services. This was done because, with the government's impetus to "decentralise" in the name of David Cameron's nebulous "big society", services are facing some radical changes. Staff wanted to know, then, what we had found helpful and what not, perhaps in a bid to show those in charge just how valued some aspects of our local services are, as they are facing the possibility of some enormous cuts in spending.
It seems that the coalition want to devolve power from central government and put it in the hands of citizens. But, is this really just a positive sounding spin to detract from the fact that services are going to be cut? Indeed, as nurse Jane Lord put it in our meeting on Tuesday, "in other words, you're going to have to do it yourselves".
Phil (a member of our group and also chair of our local North Staffs Users Group) told us that many of the beds at our local resource units were going to be lost, and even that some of the units themselves were at risk of closure. This is a great blow for many service users, as time and time again it emerges that these beds are amongst the most valued by patients because they provide a sort of intermediary service between hospital and the community. Even in our little meeting, it became apparent that the beds at the resource centres had been an invaluable help in the recovery of many. But, as money has to be saved, it seems, such things may soon be lost.
The government is trying to make this sort of thing palatable by saying that services should essentially change from a model based on inpatient care to one based more in the community. The impetus for more community based care was originally brought about, I believe in the late '50s, by human and civil rights campaigns in an attempt to get rid of old-style Victorian asylums and reduce stigma. Indeed, as Clinical Lead Nurse Janet Sigley told us, this new shake-up of services may be as wrenching as when places such as our local St. Edward's Hospital closed down and "care in the community" became the new watchword. She went on to say that staff do care about their patients and that we will still have a service, but that it is, at present, uncertain what form that service will take. So, to my mind, it's as if the cuts are being dressed up as something positive for service users, when in fact all they will mean is less resources for an already over-burdened service.
The fact is that this so-called devolution of power to the masses is actually having the opposite of its intended effect. Speaking for myself, it doesn't make me feel as if I'm suddenly in charge of my own destiny, but rather somewhat powerless in the face of the machinations of government. Stoke-on-Trent is already what I would call a deprived area, and yet we seem to be having to deal with greater cuts to our local services than many other places.
With this constant attack on services which are there for the most poor and vulnerable in our society, it is difficult not to begin to see things in a purely Marxist way, and in a poster which appeared before his election to power, David Cameron's face is shown next to the slogan, "I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS", which surely demonstrates that, if nothing else, the coalition lied its way in to Number 10. Indeed, if mental health services were a patient themselves, they'd probably be put on the "at risk" register.