I feel that the standard of adult mental health services is extremely piecemeal and poorly organised in comparison to my experience with CAMHS.
I felt that the CAMHS team did a great job in trying to help me manage my condition and work on it in a productive way, while the Steps to Wellness programme I felt was beneficial to an extent but the group therapy I felt personally made it difficult to discuss my worries in detail due to other people being present on the call.
I understand that there are funding and staffing pressures on HSCNI, but irrespective of the cause, my experience has been the communication from Steps to Wellness has been very poor.
I was told that I would be referred to an OCD group which I felt would be very helpful, however it turns out because I didn't attend the last appointment which I was told was just an overview session covering what was covered in the course, as well as making every other session out of 10 sessions, I was discharged. I wasn't even informed of this fact but had to find out from my GP.
I find that expecting people with mental health conditions to show perfect attendance and to discharge them with no notice after missing one session is extremely cruel, while I appreciate this is likely to try and reduce caseloads and the waiting lists as soon as possible, in general it supports my feeling that in the UK cruelty is a feature, not a bug of the system.
I tried emailing a practitioner from the team at least twice but I've noticed now I am getting no replies, like I am being punished or something because I forgot one time to make a session.
It's really upsetting and again makes me feel like nobody really cares or has a genuine interest in trying to help, only ticking a box to say a certain amount of sessions have been delivered.
"Poor standard of adult mental health care"
About: Adult Psychological Therapies Service / Steps to Wellness Programme Adult Psychological Therapies Service Steps to Wellness Programme Portadown BT63 5QQ
Posted by eridanusny49 (as ),
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