I totally agree with Jeremy Walker (I’ve met many Valdo Calocanes. This is how a mental health crisis can lead to tragedy, 20 August). We don’t need another expensive inquiry to tell us what we already know. Mental health community services are underfunded to the point of non-existence. An inquest in April found that gross failings amounting to neglect were causative in the death of my daughter, Lillian Lucas, as an NHS patient in a private mental health hospital.
In my opinion, such neglect is systemic in community services. When she was becoming psychotic, my daughter would pack a bag for hospital and ask us and the community team for help. Other than encouraging her to run herself a bath and light a candle, no help was forthcoming – until it came in a police car, once she’d hurt herself or us.
Our treatment of the most mentally ill in this country is appalling. Ironically, my daughter was a mental health nurse. Her passion for giving a damn about others was reflected in the many NHS staff that we met. Unfortunately, crippling underfunding and the systems in place mean that the most mentally ill in our country and their families are subject to neglect.
Mary Curran
Swansea
• As a father who has recently had the traumatic experience of one of his sons being sectioned, I can only wholeheartedly agree with Jeremy Walker’s description of how some mental health services have inbuilt bias against involving family members, and how incredibly unhelpful and damaging that can be.
When my son was hospitalised recently, I was heartened to see posters on the walls of the hospital and hear from the staff about how important it was for them to have the carer’s and family member’s perspective.
But in reality, I felt that I had to fight tooth and nail to support my son and have my knowledge respected. While he was hospitalised, I was actively having to fight against a very opaque system that was actually gaslighting me.
I was grateful for the help my son did receive from the mostly caring staff members, but his stay was made much more stressful than it needed to have been for me, my son and the institution, because it failed to take on board or properly value my voice and experience of his life.
Name and address supplied
• Jeremy Walker is correct on all the points he raises in his article, but there is one issue that is mostly overlooked whenever this subject arises: that of proactive and appropriate medical treatment. Between 0.7% and 1% of the population suffer with schizophrenia or related disorders. Of these, 30% will have treatment-resistant schizophrenia, for which there is only one licensed treatment available, clozapine. Yet barely a quarter of those eligible for this drug are prescribed it. It does have significant side-effects, but these can be managed, and it is inexpensive.
If we were to allocate more resources to proactively assessing and treating people with medications that were suitable rather than reactively treating them when they became unwell and disruptive, we could get far better mental health outcomes for no extra cost. It needs a change in culture, but the benefits could be substantial.
David Kitchen
Liverpool
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