Cuts to mental health services

In truth it has taken me a long time to get around to writing this post about cuts in funding and though many people my feel this is because I do not care I can assure you that it is not the case. The reality is that having written about this kind of stuff before I found that instead of feeling good about it, like I was doing something productive, I was in fact becoming increasingly frustrated and depressed. The news is never good!

Like many people, bad news impacts my emotions more than I would like however I am not one to be silent. The 3 petitions below all pertain to the same service and if you live in Buckinghamshire and South Bucks in particular then you may well have heard of the complex needs service.
 Save our Service
 Mental health in crisis, save bucks complex needs service
David Cameron stop cuts to complex needs services by 2/3rds
 For those of you who are reasonably fit and healthy then you may not have done and as the first link shows it is a big service taking 700 referrals a year and has good results. Because of it’s immersive nature it also needs a lot of funding to run. People attend, assessments, preparations groups, before going into the community for 18 months some for 3 days a week others for 1 day, there is then a support system in place for when they leave. If large cuts to the budget occur then the service will in all likelihood close some of the communities I.E. the service will be withdrawn from certain areas. In this case it could mean the whole of South Bucks from Aylesbury down losses this service. Don’t know Bucks? Well I can tell you that for me right at the bottom on South Bucks I have to travel 45-50 mins in the car to get to Aylesbury! It’s a huge area and many of the people who attend the communities travel a great deal to get there as it is.

Everywhere is losing funding so what, why this one? 

Because this is my local area and a service that I have been referred to in the past; it is not special, nor ground breaking in many ways, but it is one I know of. I have met people who have been through it, and for them it has been life changing.

So why is it important? 

This particular service is important because it is the only one in the area that is specifically aimed at people who have personality disorders. So what you say! Well people who are diagnosed with these conditions have the unenviable problem of not responding to drug treatments with any great success and for many years were branded untreatable. They do respond to more traditional therapy but not to the same degree as other conditions, in short this is the best type of therapy for them and it gets amazing results for people.

But believe me I would sign a petition, to save funding for any service that is well run and has good results as there are far too many people sitting on waiting lists and I personally believe that the longer you wait the harder it is to recover.
So if you want mental health services to survive then sign these because the people of South Bucks really need it.

If you want the Government to succeed in getting people back to work then this service and others like it need funding, because I do not believe that putting money into starting up a new scheme is worth it. So far all that back to work schemes have done is waste tax payers money and I would rather see that money go into improving the existing services that we know work because if you get people well then they will find work all on their own. And don’t forget people with mental health issues are the group most likely to express ‘interest in getting back to work,’ all they need is to get well.

Save our Service
Mental health in crisis, save bucks complex needs service
David Cameron stop cuts to complex needs services by 2/3rds