Hi everyone,

on the advice of UnionMaid, I have created this TA to ask you all:

Does anybody have any experience (good or bad) of the adult mental health services in the UK (NHS)? I have only ever had experience of the child/adolescent services, and am trying to find out a bit about how different the two are, how hard access is to the adult services, waiting times, etc, but more importantly, the services themselves: in your experience, how are the mental professionals working in the service? do they understand your problems? have you found that they have been compassionate? have they helped you? etc. any experiences welcome!

thanks in advance 

I have not had personal experiences but I know friends who have. Lengthy referral processes and waiting times i am led to believe. In one case, this had an absolutely tragic result. As for quality, it very much depends on who you get and how you work together. And unlike paying for those services privately you do not get to choose. Can i ask what you are particularly looking for sappy? Rx

hi all, thank you very much for the replies, they have been hugely informative.

i found the child/adolescent services to be mainly good (obviously, not perfect, but overall not bad), and that the professionals i had contact with, in general, to be kind, patient and compassionate. i asked the question about the adult services mainly because i am now too old to use the child and adolescent services, and wanted to know a bit about the adult ones just in case i ever have to use them.

like i said, very interesting and useful replies, thanks to all

xx 

I have started wondering about the nature of these services that Sappy16 has been wondering about.  I found the NHS website but it was all very much a magazine style with videos and leaflets and so I am struggling to try to understand the system.  I was operating on the assumption that NHS was rather a lot like our system here - but now I am not so sure.

What does the NHS offer in terms of assistance for people in need of support for depression and anxiety?

Here we have a process of going to a GP - who can medicate but generally you would want a GP who has undertaken special training in this area - they can provide a referral through to a hospital based counsellor - often over worked and stressed themselves.  This is the safety net.

The private system has the bulk of psychologists.  These can be accessed on a limited basis via the public system by an assessment by a GP and this will give someone - like me - a batch of 10 sessions pa largely funded by our medicare system.

 I think our gap is about $40 which is so much cheaper that $150 for the hour.  

So maybe someone could contrast the NHSA system for me?

Thanks  UMxx 

Hi UM,

Good point, as I said, I can only comment on the way things were 15 or so years ago and with the way the world is now I would think confidentiality will have increased.

I found both the GP and the therapist were very tight with information. Once I lost the note I made of a changed time for a therapy session so I called the hospital and asked when it was. They would not acknowledge over the phone that they even knew who I was but agreed to check their records and, should they find me, send an appointment letter to my home address, I thought that was pretty good, if annoying at the time. I would assume that today there would be some password or validation question set up.

As it happened I was never secretive about what I was going through - as you know I tend to be up front about most things.

For the most part I found people were very understanding and supportive, especially at work but maybe I was lucky. That said, there were few who became a bit distant, I think depression is hard for anyone to understand, all the more so if they've never been there themselves.

My last experience with the NHS Adult Mental Health system was over 10 years ago, in a small town in Yorkshire.  They were closing down Psychiatric Hospitals wholescale, and people were being turned out to live in the community who were totally incapable of doing so after years of institutionalisation, let alone their mental health problem.

For myself, I was mis-diagnosed again, but that is par for the course for DID; but I did get a great deal of help from the NHS Psychiatrist, and also the Community Psychiatric Nurse that was assigned to me.  I did not have to wait, nor was I treated badly at all - and the confidientiality was very good.