Manchester Users Network

“On The March The Start of ‘Were Not Mad’ Were Angry”

Paul Reed — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 03:45:00 +0000

“Were Not Mad, Were Angry”

"On The March" Manchester Users Network Members walk with hundreds of fellow supporters in the City on Budget Day

Hundreds from around the Northwest turned out to show support for each other and in common support against cut backs to public services, the kind that have not been used in England before. Members of the public and Union representatives from nearly all of the public services unions gathered in Piccadilly Gardens to listen to speakers from a wide range of people who are involved in the delivery or Users of public services. Manchester Users Network Chairman, Alan Hartman, who was featured in an interview carried in yesterdays international published, Financial Times, spoke with poignancy and obvious sadness that the government had decided in their emergency budget to change the rules that govern those who apply for Disability Living Allowance. “People who are often the most disadvantage in society ” he said; he went on to speak of his and that of his members anger at Manchester Mental Heaths and Social Care Trust’s action of stopping without consultation the expenses of disabled people doing voluntary work in the User’s Group . After and during his addressing of the Manchester crowds he received loud applause and cheers of support as he spoke.

None of Manchester’s Councillors or MP’s felt the need to join the march. A man from Stockport whose wife works for the NHS but who did not wish to give his name said, “Where are the people we elect to represent us? Not one member of the City Council is here, not even the Town Hall Union Representative have turned up, it stinks”

Photography by Joe Hickton Copyrights:

"Walking in March Against Cuts, on Budjet Day Manchester City" Copy Photographer : Joe Hickson

Members of Manchester Users Network Marching to the Town Hall Part of 'Were Not Mad, Were Angry Campaign against Disable Users Expenses being stopped" Photo by Joe Hickson.

View Joe Hickson at the following link:- http://joehicktonphoto.blogspot.com/

Alan Hartman (Chairman MUN) Speaks to the Financial Times Newspaper

Paul Reed — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:15:40 +0000

City aims to do ‘a bit less for a lot less’

By Andrew Bounds

Published: June 21 2010 18:53

Coun Bernard Priest Manchester City Council

Bernard Priest is a man with a calling. It is to break the link between quality and money in public services. “It is not about cutting but improving,” he says of a five-year transformation plan under way at Manchester city council.

“Most people in the public sector think that to improve something you have to spend money,” says the councillor. “We have shown you can save money and improve services.”

Manchester remains the fourth most-deprived place in Britain, and Mr Priest, the executive member for finance, says large-scale service cuts are not an option. Forty per cent of its adult residents are too poor to pay council tax.

With an annual spend of £480m, the Labour-run authority has saved £55m in the past four years and is targeting another £100m between 2010 and 2013. Council tax rises have been pegged to inflation or below for 11 years, with a freeze this year.

The measures taken are standard for the private sector. Barriers between departments have been broken down.

All staff assessing requests for services, whether it be for a taxi licence or housing benefit, work together.

A new customer service centre, part of a town hall refurbishment, has already cut waiting times from 35 minutes to seven.

Private companies providing home-care services must issue staff with electronic monitors, so the council pays only for time spent with a patient. That has cut almost £2m from a £13.8m contract.

The council reached a deal with its staff: there would be no compulsory redundancies as long as they agreed to be flexible.

Numbers have shrunk slightly to 12,500 and are expected to fall by a further 1,000 over the next three years. The council now needs to find £7m more savings this year because of central government grant cuts announced this month.

Jim White, a director of consultants Turner and Townsend, who has been advising Manchester, said it offered an alternative to the “Easycouncil” model of providing only essential services and charging for extras. “Rather than doing more with less it is about doing a bit less for a lot less,” he said.

The council is putting up school meal prices, while its “fairer” charging system for adult social services provoked a backlash when begun in 2008. Those better off and with big savings had to pay for the first time.

Mr Priest said: “We don’t get everything right but that was the right decision. We need to charge some people so we can provide a service to those who need it most. In Manchester we do not want communities and people to be left to sink or swim.”

Many mental health sufferers, however, say they can no longer afford day centres where their conditions were managed in the community.

Alan Hartman, of the Manchester Users’ Network, a patients’ group, said: “A lot of people are suffering. Many are in debt and lots are going back into hospital because their condition is deteriorating.”

Several members are seeking a judicial review to overturn the decision.

FT: Link http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e429a9f0-7d58-11df-a0f5-00144feabdc0.html

Deputy Prime Minister ‘Supports NHS Whistleblowers’

Paul Reed — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:39:39 +0000

Royal College of Nursing at their annual Congress in Bournemouth.

: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg Supported Nurse Reissmann For Telling The Truth

In his speech : The Deputy Prime Minister did not forget Manchester Nurse Karen Reissmann, who two and half years ago along with Manchester Users Network, spoke of the forthcoming nightmare of Cutbacks and closures of wards in Manchester . Read Mr Clegg’s speech which was made in the run up to the election , yet he remembered Manchester and the problems there, two years after he first promised to support the Nurses and Patients in Manchester (Read his full speech)

“The real question that politicians now have to answer is not: How much do you love the NHS? It’s, how do you protect and improve the NHS at a time like this?,” the Liberal Democrat Leader said;Speaking at the Royal College of Nursing’s conference in Bournemouth , Nick Clegg said:-Thank you so much for inviting me to speak to you today. It is a real honour to be here. You don’t need me to tell you that the job you do is one of the most important jobs there is. You are the lifesavers as well as the shoulders to cry on. You are the healers and well as the comforters.Politicians have the chance to make a difference once in a while. You make a difference every day, if not twenty or a hundred times a day. You, as nurses and as a profession, have my respect, my admiration, and my utmost commitment to support you and the work you do in our NHS.

The RCN itself, of course, is the largest organisation of its kind in the world, and also, I might add, the best. I met a group of student nurses a few months ago when they came up to Parliament on the RCN bus. And today, I’ve come here to the RCN on the Liberal Democrat campaign bus – the most glaringly bright yellow vehicle you’ve ever seen.

It’s a particular honour to be here because you are leading the way in addressing the challenges in the NHS, setting the example politicians must now follow – something I want to discuss in more detail in a moment. And you are making your voice heard on the political stage, with your Nursing Counts Campaign. You are right to say that NHS services must be protected. That if the axe falls on caring staff, it will cost us all more in the long term. And you are absolutely correct to highlight the importance of public health and specialist nurses, to help us keep people healthier and manage long-term conditions more effectively.

One particular proposal you are making caught my eye: protection for whistleblowers. Just before I was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats I went on a march with a Manchester nurse Karen Reissmann who had spoken out about her concerns over the provision of treatment in her local area and had been summarily sacked. Though I clearly didn’t make much of an impression as she’s now standing for another party.

But there’s a simple principle: nurses need to be able to highlight their concerns without fear and without threat of retribution. You see what is going on: you must speak out, and when you do, you will always have my support.

Whether it’s community nursing to improve public health and reduce demand on the NHS, or specialist nursing, from rheumatology to mental health, to take the burden off consultants, and GP follow-up appointments and improved patient care.

Your skills, initiative and ideas are going to be essential to the changes we make to ensure the NHS services people rely on are protected even now that money is tight. I could tell you about the wonderful nurses in our local surgery, or in our local hospital, who have cared for my three sons on countless occasions.

I could tell you about the nurses who helped my wife Miriam just this weekend when she fractured her elbow. But the truth is the only thing that is remarkable about my experiences in the NHS is how wholly unremarkable they are. I am just one of millions.

Parents turning up at A&E in the middle of the night with a sick child in their arms. People going through months or years of chemotherapy in the battle against cancer. Others finding a route out of depression or addiction with counselling and care. Every experience is different, and yet each is the same.

The NHS is not a faceless institution but the sum total of millions of individual, acts of care and support. The brainchild of a Liberal, Beveridge, the NHS was founded on a series of fundamentally liberal, and fundamentally British values. Fairness. Equity. Solidarity. Those principles endure today. Rightly so.

It is something that perhaps too many of us, too often, take for granted, but which must never change. The NHS is a precious inheritance. It must not be cast aside.

I am wholly committed, head and heart, to keeping our NHS, free to use and paid for by us all. But you and I also know that’s the easy bit to say. The real question that politicians now have to answer is not: How much do you love the NHS?
It’s how do you protect and improve the NHS at a time like this when money is tight.
There will be 3.5m babies born in over the course of the next five years – 100,000 more than in the last five.

How do we guarantee they will be born as safely as babies born today? There will be an extra 1.7m people in need of long term care by 2026.

How do we guarantee they will get the standards of care available today? There are new treatments and new drugs for diseases like cancer being developed every day.

How do we ensure a publicly funded NHS can afford to make world-class treatment available for all? And how do we do any of this when there is less money to go around in all our public services? I believe we can and must protect services and jobs in the NHS. But we can only do so if we face up to the realities of the situation in which we find ourselves.

I could have come here with promises of bags of gold, but you would not have believed me. You live in the real world. You know, we all know that money is now tight. The deficit now stands at £167bn. And we all know that finding bucketloads more money for health at a time when budgets are tight could only come at the cost of other equally essential areas like schools and police.

So you know we have to find ways to help the NHS do more with the money it already has. And you are rightly sceptical, as you said at the weekend, of promises from politicians that do not face up to those basic facts. And do not acknowledge that cuts are not something that might happen in the future but something that is happening, right now.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies this morning assessed the parties’ policies on the deficit and taxation. And concluded that the Liberal Democrats’ plan is the most credible – even if there’s still much more work to do, we have gone further in spelling out how to cut the deficit.

The most fair – we will put money in the pockets of people who need a break by raising the income tax threshold so that no one will pay a penny of income tax on the first £10000 they earn. A proposal which the IFS has specifically said is the best way to encourage people to move off benefits and into work.

The old politics is to make unfunded promises and hit you with surprises after the election. Our way of doing things is to be as open and upfront as possible about the challenges we face and how, together, we can start to fill the black hole in the public finances and deliver fair taxes to millions of people who need a break.

We need a new, different approach to the way money is allocated and used within the NHS.

That is what I want to talk to you about today.

I want to talk about our plans to help the NHS work better with the money it has by devolving power to patients, to local people and to staff like you.

Plans mirrored in many ways by the approach of my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament for the Welsh and Scottish NHS – both of which face similar if not greater pressures than the NHS in England.

We will look for efficiency and unnecessary programmes of spending wherever they lie. But because the NHS faces exceptional demographic pressures, savings we identify within the health service will be diverted, penny for penny, pound for pound to areas of the NHS which have been starved of cash, or could be in future years.

Areas like dementia, where demographic pressures are high, cancer, where the costs of treatment are rising, and mental health, which has been a Cinderella service within the NHS for far too long.

Our working assumption is that we will stick to the government plans for NHS funding. That doesn’t mean trying to do the impossible: more with less. It simply means spending money where it is needed, not wasting it elsewhere.

Just think of the mistakes that have marred the impressive record of investment in recent years: A grandiose IT project running years behind schedule and billions over budget. GP and consultant contracts poorly negotiated with no clear benefit for patients. And an endless cycle of botched reorganisations of the endless quangos, boards, trusts and agencies that make up our health services.

An NHS which has more administrators, managers and clerks than it does hospital beds. Government figures show it would take one person 491 years to provide all the data the government agencies demand from health services each year.

Last year filling in those forms cost the country a total of £1bn, enough to pay the salaries of more than 25,000 nurses. Just imagine how different – how much better – our NHS could be if this were changed. My vision for change in the NHS is a liberal one.

It’s about dispersing power – to patients and to clinical staff. You know as well as I do that the NHS is over-centralised and still driven far too heavily by targets and bureaucracy.

And you know, both as people who work in the NHS and as people who use it that patients themselves have too little control, both over their day-to-day care, and over the direction and priorities of the NHS as a whole.

So I want to give more power to local people. More power to staff and more power to patients.

First: local people
In the last 13 years, increases in public spending have been accompanied by the politics of big government. More money has been given – and Liberal Democrats welcomed that decision wholeheartedly. But it was given on the condition that central government got to decide how to spend it.

Central directions, onerous inspections and a myriad of bureaucratic targets. Micromanagement, waste and skewed priorities. These are the hallmarks of a Labour NHS. Liberal Democrats will radically change the way the NHS is run by devolving power to local people. I want to turn remote PCTs that answer to the Secretary of State, into accountable Local Health Boards answerable to the people who use the local NHS.

Two thirds of the members directly elected by local people and the final third indirectly elected representatives from local councils. Let me assure you: this isn’t a proposal for yet another reorganisation of NHS structures. I know – I hear it all the time from everyone I meet who works in the NHS – that you are sick to the back teeth of restructuring. Our proposals will not put you through another pointless cycle of change.

What we want is for the existing structures, Primary Care Trusts, to become democratically accountable. A responsive NHS should have a central structure, of course, but it should not dictate local needs – it should respond to them. The signals shouldn’t always go downwards, in the form of orders, targets, rules and regulations.

The signals should go upwards, from patients, from communities, from doctors, nurses and local managers who have the perspective to understand what is best for individual patients’ needs. But it’s not enough to devolve power to the health board level.

We should go further still. Labour has finally moved towards a set of entitlements for every patient, and I want to see that idea implemented in full.

Under our proposal, where a health service provider fails to deliver those entitlements they will be legally obliged to pay for that treatment in whichever facility can provide it – inside the NHS or outside.

We know this can work because we’ve seen it work in Denmark. Their entitlement system has driven up efficiency standards as state hospitals do everything within their power to avoid paying for treatment elsewhere. It will do the same here. Saving money and improving standards. And then, we need to empower individuals with truly personalised health services.

I welcome the changes the government is making to move in this direction. I want to see more direct payments and individual budgets for people with chronic, long-term conditions - and in mental health services, in particular, where care still lags too far behind. That means allowing health service users the opportunity to take much more control of managing their own care.

By giving real choice to the individual, we can empower that patient and allow them to shape a care package for themselves – a package that suits their individual wants and needs. And nurses, especially specialist nurses, will be right at the heart of delivering those new kinds of care. In the community, in surgeries, in hospitals – you are the people who the NHS will rely on more and more in future years.

The final step to reform is to put more power into the hands of you, the people who serve our NHS. I know this is politically fashionable right now. Even Labour, who took power away from front line staff, is eager to make promises.

The difference I can offer is simple: employee empowerment is a fundamental liberal principle. Liberal Democrats are not fair-weather friends, promising more freedom one day, and threatening more rules the next.

The idea of devolving power away from Whitehall, away from managers, and to the public servants who are the heart and soul of the NHS goes to the core of everything we believe in. We will put front line staff in charge over their ward or unit budgets. A change Nursing Standard has long been campaigning for.

We will allow staff to establish not-for-profit social enterprises or John Lewis-style employee trusts to run services of all kinds within the NHS. We will let diversity and flexibility flourish within our health service.

And we can assure you: this will be a permanent change, not a temporary blip in an otherwise unrelenting stream of centralisation. Nine months ago I launched a consultation exercise called Ask the People in the Know. A website where public servants themselves could submit their ideas for delivering the services they know best - for less. Cutting out the waste that only those on the front line see.

For far too long, governments of both old parties have sought to change things with commissions or reports researched, written and implemented in an office in Whitehall. I wanted to turn that conventional wisdom on its head. Instead of commissioning an expert to spend a year writing a report on inefficiency. I asked the people who already know. We were inundated with responses.

Hundreds of people – dedicated public servants – putting forward their ideas from small changes to procurement regimes to major proposals to abolish duplication between regulatory agencies. I want to ask the same question again today to you.

This weekend the RCN rightly said that unless change happens in our NHS, the savings needed will be delivered by sacking staff who are so desperately needed to deliver care. And that will cost us all more money in the long term.

So how do we make the savings we all acknowledge are needed? From Whitehall, a Liberal Democrat government can cut bureaucracy and streamline quangos. And we will.

We will scrap Strategic Health Authorities, saving £140m a year from management costs. We will help PCTs cut their management and admin costs back – in real terms to what they were in 2005, saving £800m a year. We will decentralise the NHS and cut the central department in half - saving £100m a year. And we will cap NHS chief execs’ pay, so that none earn more than the Prime Minister.

From government, too, we can use pay restraint to keep pay costs under control, and so protect jobs. We will seek pay restraint with fairness. Our proposal is very different from those of the two other parties. I reject the idea from the Conservatives of a blanket pay freeze for all registered nurses.

But I reject, too the idea from Labour that you give a 1% pay rise to everyone, meaning an extra £1000 a year for a chief executive on £100,000, but just £190 extra for a nurse just starting out on his or her career. That is deeply unfair.

We propose a cap on pay rises of £400, so that the little money there is for pay increases is shared fairly.

Going to nurses who need it not consultants and senior managers who are already very comfortably off. Every nurse earning less than £40,000 will be better off under our pay plans than under either of the other parties.

And while I do believe there needs to be reform to public sector pensions we will not remove a penny of entitlements you have already built up, and for which you have worked so hard. So: cuts to central bureaucracy and restraint on pay: these are essential. And the money will be diverted, penny for penny, pound for pound to areas of the NHS which have been starved of cash, or could be in future years. But it is still not enough to protect the services we rely on. We can and must do more.

I was heartened by the report of the NHS Institute which identified £3.6 billion of efficiency savings that could be made if less efficient Trusts performed better. Changes like reducing pre-operative bed days, increasing day surgery rates, and increasing the numbers of patients who turn up for their appointments. The only problem is: I can’t make those things happen. Only you can. So tell us how.

We need to change the way power flows in the NHS. You should be telling us how to run it, not the other way around. Central bureaucrats, hidden behind closed doors, do not know how to cut the fat without cutting into the services people need. You do.

It is only the skills, innovation and ideas of the nursing staff of our health service that can protect it from the cuts you fear. This is a time of real change for the NHS.

Let us make sure it is change in the right direction. The NHS will not survive if we do not, together, take time to listen to the people who count, who work in the NHS, and then deliver savings which make sense.

By turning the NHS on its head, letting power flow up from you to the hospital boards, the local health boards and on, up to Whitehall, I believe we can protect the NHS we all rely on, even at a time when money is increasingly tight. That is the change the NHS needs.

And nurses can and must be at heart of making it happen.

PATIENTS MEETING WITH SERCO AT MAINWAY 1ST JUNE 10:30am

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 04:20:58 +0000

“MANCHESTER USERS’ NETWORK”

IMPORTANT MEETING!

Invite’s,

Tracey Phillips of

SERCO (Welfare to Work).

Tuesday 1st June 2010, 10.30am is followed by a light buffet at 12.15.

Held in, “Mainway”

Park House Hospital.

Patients’ views, suggestions needed!

Common Concerns

* Will we all be assessed for work next year?

* Under qualified staff assessing people at Job Centres!

* There is over 2.5million unemployed. It seems obvious they want to diminish our benefit!

* We are charged at Day Centres if we are unable to do voluntary work!

* If we refuse to take medication, can we lose benefit (ESA) ?

ALL PATIENTS,

WELCOME.

(Sufferers from Mental illness)

“We need to support and help each other.”

Further information Tel Tracey phillips (0161)786 8666/ Alan, (0161) 918 4343/492 0790.

Important Meeting - Welfare to Work - 1st June

Paul Reed — Sun, 16 May 2010 19:59:55 +0000

It is not everyday that you get the chance to question officials, yet that’s exactly what you may do on the 1^st June 2010. when SERCO come to town, to visit Manchester Users Network in Mainway at Park House Crumpsall, Manchester.

Serco: The Guardian newspaper has called Serco “probably the biggest company you’ve never heard of.” The international services provider will be explaining and taking questions about the Government’s Flexible New Deal initiative to support jobseekers in returning to and remaining in work.

The value of this contract depends on the number of jobseekers involved in the scheme, but Serco believes the Greater Manchester deal could yield up to pounds £250m over the contract period. (5 years the same as the present coalition Government’s term in office). Serco also run the Manchester Metro Link and many of Manchester Tag Systems that help to keep control of those sentenced by the courts and who are placed on tagging orders. Chip systems that alert the Police if a person is outside of his home when they should remain within their homes between the Courts ordered hours.

Last Sept 2009, Serco announced a 32.8% increase in half year pre-tax profits to pounds 83.4m, on a 30.8% hike on turnover of pounds 1.95bn.

Serco entered 2010 with a record order book of £17.1bn, and significant opportunities of £28bn across the UK and internationally, supported by their substantial capabilities in helping their customers to transform fundamentally the efficiency and productivity of essential services.

The Group reports that it has continued to perform strongly in the first half of 2010, delivering high levels of operational performance, and growing by expanding the scope and scale of existing contracts and by winning new contracts. Their financial position remains strong, and they anticipate good free cash flow generation for the year. The Group says it is on track to deliver on its financial guidance for 2010, and they report that they will continue to see substantial opportunities around the world, in existing and new markets. Manchester Users Network viewed the companys financial statements on Sunday 16th May, 2010 . We have only viewed the companys published statements from September of last year , until yesterday.

In the year to date, Serco have signed contracts across a wide variety of markets with a total value of approximately £1bn.

However, many have made complaints against the company due to its treatment of people in this country and in other countries where Serco operate. In a news story on the London Indy media website in February of this year, it was reported…” Around 50 people demonstrated on Friday 12 Feb, 2010 outside the Holborn offices of SERCO in Hand Court in support of the women detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre, run by SERCO, who are protesting at the inhumane treatment they receive there and whose hunger strike was broken up in a violent assault by SERCO officers .” ..(Read Full details at this link).

http://london.indymedia.org/articles/4310

Below is what a Doctor who is also, a shareholder in the company Serco said in a press release made last week. So make sure you are at the Manchester Users Event to put your questions.

Press Release Tuesday 11 MAY 1.30PM

At Serco’s annual meeting in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall this morning Dr Frank Arnold, torture scars expert and Serco shareholder asked the following question:

‘Serco is expanding its activities in Healthcare to include NHS hospital management, polyclinics and GP services. At the same time, the company is receiving serious criticism and reputational harm because of its role in the incarceration of children at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre under contract to the UK Borders Agency. As the Chief Inspector of Prisons and Children’s Champion have publicly insisted, it is not possible to lock up children (who have done no wrong) without harming them, Will the board agree to take legal steps to obtain release from its contracts with UK BA over administrative detention to improve the company’s reputation?’

According to Dr Arnold, Serco chief executive Chris Hyman replied that Serco had made improvements at Yarl’s Wood including fewer locked doors, a reduction in uniforms and new educational facilities. ‘We weren’t required to do that under the contract,’ said Mr Hyman.

Speaking after the meeting, Dr Arnold said, ‘Chris Hyman invited me to come to Yarl’s Wood with him. I said I’d want to include, subject to patient consent, him sitting in on a consultation so he could see what should be done with patients like this and compare it with what has been done by Serco staff. I’d really rather bring Phil Woolas or Meg Hillier, but Chris Hyman will do.’

Serco director of group communications Dominic Cheetham was at the meeting. His mobile: 0771 804 2605

Dr Arnold’s background note below:

Each year the UK detains around 1000 children (1) in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs). These children are members of families identified for removal from Britain, who are detained under administrative order. They range in age from very young babies to older teenagers, as well as so-called ‘age disputed minors’, who are alone. They have committed no crime but can be detained without time limit and without judicial oversight. During a recent six month period 83 children were held for more than 28 days

Many of these children suffer neglect of serious medical conditions, both physical and psychological which are frequently made worse by their imprisonment. Examples include children detained while in sickle crisis, continuing detention in ignorance of a vital central venous feeding line in place, failure to provide immunisation and malaria prophylaxis when due, weight loss, behavioural regression, onset or deterioration of pre-existing PTSD and depression, and suicidal behaviour. All of these failures of care have been documented by clinical experts and in parliament and the media (3,4).

The vast majority of these children are locked up at Yarl’s Wood, where Serco is the company responsible for detention management and healthcare. The company has recently made investments in trying to improve the conditions. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this has actually improved outcomes for these children, and there is considerable recent evidence to the contrary. However prettily you paint the walls, these children are still imprisoned, dealing with the traumas of dawn raids and being locked up. The administrative detention of children is simply too harmful to be accepted in a civilised society.

The Royal Colleges of Paediatrics and Child Health, General Practitioners and Psychiatrists, the Children’s Commissioner and the Prisons Inspectorate have all recently called for an end to the detention of children. This shameful and damaging practice must cease. Serco should seek to terminate contracts which require the company to collude in state-sponsored child abuse.

Notes:

1) Home Office. Control of Immigration: Quarterly Statistical Summary, United Kingdom, April–June 2009. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs09/immiq209.pdf
2) Lorek A et al. The mental and physical health difficulties of children held within a British immigration detention centre: a pilot study. Child Abuse & Neglect 2009; 33: 573.
3) House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. The Detention of Children in the
Immigration System. November 29, 2009.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhaff/73/73.pdf

4) Porter H. The brutal truth of child detention. Guardian. November 24. 2009.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/nov/24/child-detention-yarls-wood

d

Stock Exchange Announcements:

SERCO: Monday, 17th May, 2010.

As a company listed on the London Stock Exchange we’re required to make a formal Stock Exchange Announcement on any event that has a material impact on our business.

In general, we put out Stock Exchange Announcements to report substantial business developments, new business with significant turnover, directors’ share purchases and sales, and notice of key dates such as results announcements, analyst visits and trading updates.

Serco Group (SRP)

Sector: Support

Share Price: 630.00p

Change Today: -15.00p

Market Cap: £3,104.28m

“MANCHESTER USERS’ NETWORK”
IMPORTANT MEETING!

Invite’s,

Tracey Phillips of

SERCO (Welfare to Work).

Tuesday 1st June 2010, 10.30am is followed by a light buffet at 12.15.

Held in, “Mainway”

Park House Hospital.

Patients’ views, suggestions needed!

Common Concerns

* Will we all be assessed for work next year?

* Under qualified staff assessing people at Job Centres!

* There is over 2.5million unemployed. It seems obvious they want to diminish our benefit!

* We are charged at Day Centres if we are unable to do voluntary work!

* If we refuse to take medication, can we lose benefit(ESA)?

ALL PATIENTS,

WELCOME.

(Sufferers from Mental illness)

“We need to support and help each other.”

Further information Tel Tracey phillips (0161)786 8666/ Alan, (0161) 918 4343/492 0790.

24hrs To Save Mental health services in Manchester

Paul Reed — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:22:03 +0000

Yesterday Manchester Parliamentary Candidates kindly answered the questions of Service Users. Yesterday the Manchester Press decided to ignore every family in Manchester, not one journalist from TV, Radio or the Manchester Evening News wished to report on six MP’s who’s story you can read below. Nick Clegg the Leader of the Lib Dems this week said he supported the Services Users and openly gave his support to The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Parliamentary candidate Nurse Karen Reissmann who is standing against Sir Gerald Kaufman in Gorton, Manchester. Nick Clegg is a long time supporter of Manchester Users Network and Nurse Karen, who’s lucky number on the ballot paper is 7 (Seven) . Sir Gerald Kaufman says; patients should vote for him in Gorton, Sir Gerald Kaufman ,would not attend the M.U.N Election Special hosted by Manchester Users Network, his agent asked that patient’s talk to Sir Gerald, after the election . That’s a little late for us patients Sir, we need to know today how you are going to help the Mental Health Service Users of Manchester.”

By: Sue McPherson

Manchester Users Network ‘Election Special’ Question Time Report

Today, May 5th 2010, Manchester Users Network (http://www.manchesterusersnetwork.org.uk/) held an Election Special Question Time for staff, users and the public. It was a well-organised event held in the friendly venue of The Cleveland in Crumpsall.

MUN had invited a number of candidates to attend and it was pleasing to see some had accepted that invite in order to respond to questions about mental health– an area frequently under-prioritised in election campaigning. On the panel were Qassim Afzal, Liberal Democrat PPC for Manchester Gorton, James Edsberg, Conservative PPC for Blackley and Broughton, Caroline Healy, Conservative PPC for Manchester Gorton, Marc Ramsbottom, Liberal Democrat PPC for Manchester Central, Karen Reissmann, Trade Union and Socialist Coalition PPC for Manchester Gorton and Graham Stringer, Labour PPC for Blackley and Broughton.

A wonderful Question Time banner, made by school student Bobby Dowding, hung behind the candidates, and this contribution had been matched by an anonymous donation of ￡40 to support the meeting’s cost. The highly- skilled Chair, Paul Reed, having introduced the format – introductions, written questions and questions from the floor, asked the audience to take a minute’s silence to remember those MUN members not with us today. The questions were serious and excellent, covering both Manchester issues and wider points about mental health and the NHS.

Candidates were, in the main, well-prepared, though had different views on how mental health services and issues could be solved and contextualised in a wider backdrop of public sector cuts and their own party policies. There were also some challenges to each others’ political positions and some passionate points from the audience members. Paul Reed gave the candidates equal and ample time to give their answers and the meeting ran smoothly throughout.

The words fair, fairness and change cropped up many times – with the main parties, in particularly, using these phrases as an attachment to their approaches. A summary of some their answers gives a small flavour of the candidate’s views.

Questions:

The first question asked how candidates would ensure that MUN groups could have a voice, given that Foundation Hospitals ‘personally select’ users to assess services?

The Conservative, James C. Edsberg, felt that how people have access to services was important and that consistency across the country was needed. They would address the issue of equal access to mental health services. Edsberg moved to a broader context, speaking of the ‘battle between Labour and the Tories,’ and that we needed a ‘clear result on Friday’ to make sure the NHS was not under threat. He added that there needed to be a better balance between the public and private sectors, contending that the private sector was a ‘wealth creator’ that supplied jobs. His colleague, Caroline Healy also mentioned the concept of the Big Society, arguing that the state could not provide everything. Lib Dems, Marc Ramsbottom and Qassim Afzal offered two points. Firstly, that users should be included in commissioning not just assessment of services and, secondly, that the Lib Dems favoured equality, fairness and empowerment. Karen Reissmann, TUSC, argued that trade unions elect their own representatives and the same should be true of users – they should be the determining voice. Nevertheless, she also remarked that people who speak out are often very vulnerable and are often afraid of any consequences of doing so – as such, she said, politicians have a serious responsibility to ensure they could speak out as they wished and must support them at every step. Graham Stringer, Labour, told us that if, in practice, discrimination existed then an MP would need to listen and take this up with the NHS – whether a Foundation hospital or not.

Question 2 posed this provocative point: would candidates consider holding a local referendum in the cases of sacked health workers who had been ‘honest’ about the NHS?

The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives said no, but felt that workers should be able to speak out; and that existing mechanisms, such as trade unions and tribunals assisted with that process. Reissmann contended that staff are not confident of speaking out about any problems in the NHS and that; for example, the Royal College of Nursing had reported that 67% of staff would not risk their livelihoods by speaking out. She spoke about the need for an open discussion by staff and users about the NHS without any ‘blocks’ or ‘fear.’ Stringer felt a referendum was a ‘bad idea’ and there were wider issues for the NHS. He believed people should be encouraged to expose problems, but the word ‘fear’ was too ‘glib’ a response from Reissmann.

Question 3 referred to how patients at Park House are being discharged, with debt, without access to a welfare rights officer. This service had been cut without consultation –would candidates support this service?

Reissmann declared yes, absolutely, she would support it – welfare rights officers should be a mandatory part of the service. The ‘myriad’ of benefits needed specialist and expertise support and that could only be done by a WRO. She said what was happening was a ‘disgrace’ as the service had been well-used in the past. She argued that a lack of access to such a service had the potential to put people who are unwell at risk. The Conservatives agreed in the main. Healy felt strongly that too many people were ‘tipped out’ of public services. She proposed that a better bridge between institutions and community are needed. Stringer added his approval, but remarked that it does not matter who provides the services, the state or the voluntary sector, while the Lib Dems felt that any elected MP should liaise with service providers, users and organisations to ensure full access to this service was given.

Then, an in-patient asked this: given suicide rates in Manchester had increased by 1/3rd over the last year, what changes in mental health services could help stop this dangerous situation?

The Conservative candidates prioritised reducing the stigma of mental illness, particularly in work settings. Edsberg argued that employers needed better training to ensure ‘fairness’ as many employees were worried they’d be passed over for promotion if they declared mental illness.

Afzal spoke about his work at the Roby Centre, the vitality of such services and further the need to address mental illness in the BME community. Ramsbottom pointed out the link between debt and suicide and the necessity of early intervention around access to support and benefits to help circumvent this problem. Stringer contended that other panellists were, however, ‘over-claiming’ what MPS can do. He proposed that statistics needed careful analysis in order to identify gaps in services and target accordingly, possibly introducing bespoke services where needed. Reissmann offered the point that suicide can occur when people feel hopeless about their future and that in spite of an increase to mental health funding, more was still needed. However, she argued that this needs to be matched by a deep consideration of the various contexts that create such despair – whether this is unemployment or the low level of benefits. She also pointed out that Labour had already announced nearly ￡1 billion worth of cuts to Greater Manchester NHS and that people need to band and work together to fight these cuts after the election.

Another questioner explained he was a ‘revolving patient’ and what did the parties’ manifestos say about guaranteeing Disability Living Allowance for the over 65s?

The Lib Dems replied that they had no plans to reduce any benefits but would have a review of public sector spending. They wanted to protect essential benefits and would use money earmarked for ID cards and a like-for like replacement of Trident, for example, as well as closing tax loopholes, to carry that pledge through. Stringer proposed that cuts were inevitable as there is a gap in the country’s finances. He did say, as a rejoinder to the Lib Dems, that he had voted against Trident and the Iraq war and had a very good record on these issues .He promised to fight to keep benefits as they are and provide pathways for employment

Healy said the Conservatives would be keeping Disability Living Allowance and would also offer a week’s respite for carers, who are often overlooked by the government. Reissmann recalled the 1980s when DLA was almost impossible to claim in terms of mental illness. She congratulated MUN on the way they had fought their corner to gain recognition. She argued that there appeared to be a systematic attack by government against people who are sick and a political choice about where to get money from, and who to give it to, was driving this attack. She contended that ￡130 billion went missing in unpaid taxes and loopholes, for example and it appeared the government would rather ‘bankrupt the working class than’ begin to fill the deficit by collecting those taxes.

The next questioner asked this: Could the panel discuss the idea that people in this country are not given recourse to public funds and services if their citizenship status was uncertain – and is this civilised?

Stringer said he had worked with Christian groups and had signed the Sanctuary Pledge. His conclusion was that the Asylum system was ‘inefficient’ and while his ‘instinct’ was to agree that the system was uncivilised he would have to say no: there were some ‘villains and worse’ in the system so citizenship needed granting first. Edsberg put forward the point that it was uncivilised because it took too long to determine status. He was very proud of the country being a ‘beacon of hope’ for asylum seekers but said the system was unfit for purpose. Reissmann argued that Asylum seekers are desperate, fleeing from countries like Iran, Afghanistan, the Congo and Iraq – often the trauma of persecution resulted in mental illness, which requires an immediate response. She pointed out there were political contradictions in policy that enabled our engagement with war in countries from which people were fleeing, while saying they were not fully welcome here; not only should we be giving proper recourse to services, but we should also allow asylum seekers to work. The Lib Dems agreed on this last point, arguing that this was a serious issue and that in a civilised society asylum seekers would not be dependent upon charity. Ramsbottom declared that the Tories were being inconsistent as they wanted to scrap the Human Rights Act. Healy rejoined this by remarking that the EU’s Common Asylum Policy, supported by Labour and the Lib Dems, means the UK has little say over Asylum polices.

Another questioner, a nurse said she was deeply worried about cuts after the election. She said in the NHS there was a saying that voting for the Tories would be like ‘Turkeys voting for Christmas’ but that ‘voting for Labour’ would be like’ voting or Easter – the cuts came a tad later’. What would candidates do to oppose cuts and privatisation in the NHS? Would the candidates pledge to keep beds – as people die without beds - and would they ensure NHS patients did not get ‘crumbs from the high table?’

The Conservatives responded by saying, firmly, that the Tories had made a pledge, unlike the other parties, in increase health spending and if we do not stick to it, ‘you can kick us out.’ An efficiency review would, however, need to take place. Stringer told us not to elect the Tories – and not to trust them. He told the nurse she had a ‘rum view’ given Labour had increased the NHS budget. He argued that it would be ‘absurd’ to promise a guarantee over bed numbers, as treatment needs and solutions were always changing. He said we had to accept some change and that not every hospital closure was a bad thing, given new hospitals such as the MRI had opened.

Reissmann said that Stringer was indeed right in terms of the amount of money put into the NHS, but argued that the market mechanisms introduced under Thatcher and increased under successive governments meant that such new hospitals were paid for through the Private Finance Initiative. She stressed that this costs significantly more than building hospitals through the NHS. The Lib Dems agreed with Stringer about positive change, but said that it should never be incumbent on individuals to campaign for the NHS. Democratic structures were needed in the service to ensure that users had a real say over changes or closures.

The last three points were raised and responded to in conjunction. One man reported that he had been shocked to receive a bill for ￡1000 after being in a care home on temporary basis – this, he said, had affected his health. Another was worried that the Department for Works and Pensions was ‘pushing’ people back to work and that ‘unqualified professionals’ were assessing users. Finally, another man reinforced the query about charges for social care, reminding the panel that 82% of users in Manchester had been landed with huge bills by the Local Authority. What will the candidates do, therefore, about the poor and the vulnerable in such situations?

Stringer said that care contracts should ‘speak upfront’ to users about the cost. He was already taking up the issue of charging with the Local Authority and while it seemed the legal basis was sound he did not think charges should have been introduced. In terms of benefits and the back-to-work agenda, he believed in a sensitive approach so that those who could work were fully supported. He remarked that sometimes ‘people are talked into feeling they are unfit for work’ and if they want to work they needed support to do so. The Conservatives proposed that money should travel with individuals and that they would end a separation of health and social care budgets, adding that it was not the ‘right ethos’ for Stringer to say the contract should have ‘spoken upfront to the user.’ In terms of work, the candidates said those that are able should be fully supported into work but if they cannot they should not be forced and that is ‘fairness’.

Reissmann argued that no charges should exist for ill people. The NHS and Social Care should not be run based on the ability to pay. She explained that there should indeed be a range of services in place to ensure those who wanted to work and could work were able to do so – but pointed out that being off sick can be a disciplinary offence. As such, those with mental health issues, who might have to take time off sick, need stronger employment rights – as, did all workers. She claimed that every ‘ounce’ was being squeezed out of public sector workers and thus here was another set of contradictory responses from candidates who had spoken so far: that mental health services were a priority, but that workers with mental health problems were simply not. The Liberal Democrats position was to ensure constituents were able to access MPs who would fight for their rights – and added that charges seemed ‘unfair.’ Employers should support those with mental illness and that the level of work taken by people must be appropriate to their capacity and fitness. Further, poorly managed local authorities, such as Manchester City Council, exacerbated the problem.

With questions over, candidates summarised their beliefs, policies and ideas. Stringer offered the continued improvement of the NHS as a sign of Labour’s commitment to mental health services. Ramsbottom, for the Lib Dems, said the principles of freedom, rights and liberty remained at the heart of his party’s approach. He would fight discrimination and ensure equality. Reissmann contended that mental health services and users were often forgotten and she would continue to add to her 30 years as an activist and nurse to work with others to fight that corner and fight back against the cuts. .The Conservatives ended by saying that real change could come if people voted for David Cameron’s party and that a new Tory government would address all the issues raised today; they would not pay lip services but ensure a better NHS.

There was no doubt that the candidates had faith in their own policies and approaches. Nevertheless, what did the MUN members think? Alan Hartman, a founding member of the MUN said he felt ‘Karen Reissmann would prioritise mental health the most.’ He said he was ‘disappointed that some candidates, such as Sir Gerald Kauffman had not come today’ and hoped that further hustings – vital for every election – would see candidates giving mental health a priority in their schedule. Alan also remarked that there did seem to be ‘cross-party agreement over the need for a welfare rights officer at Park House,’ which he thought was encouraging. However, he also said that MUN members had felt ‘intimidated’ because senior management from the Trust had appeared at this ‘political meeting to take notes.’ Politicians should take serious, serious note of Alan’s words and the shape of this Hustings. Some members could not come today because they are in-patients – yet rooms in hospitals are hard to book as service providers take up much space on a regular basis. When politicians talk about access and equality they might well want to think carefully about the resources needed to even begin to make that possible. They should also note that the word ‘intimidation’ stands in stark contrast to the frequent pledges of fairness. One thing is; The MUN understands, as a group, that it is their commitment that has raised and will continue to raise the deeply important debate about mental health in Manchester: politicians must match that commitment with more than words.

Election Special for Patients staff and the Public

Paul Reed — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:31:13 +0000

Manchester Users Network is hosting an Election Special for Patients staff and the Public to attend so they will have a chance to ask questions of the eight Parliamentary Candidates

Manchester Users Network hosts the Question Time Special

The Prospected Parliamentary Candidate is as follow.

Mr James C Edsberg Conservative Blackley and Broughton (has Confirmed)

Mr Marc Ramsbottom Manchester Central (has confirmed)

Mr Qassim Afzal Manchester Gorton (Has Confirmed)

Caroline Healy conservative Manchester Gorton (Has Confirmed)

Karen Reissman Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition Party Manchester Gorton (has Confirmed) Lynn Worthington Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition Party

Wythenshawe and Sale East (Yet To Confirm)

Graham Stringer Labour Party Blackley and Broughton (Yet To Confirm)

Another Labour Party member has been invited is yet to confirm.

The Event will take place at 10:30am prompt 5th May 2010 (Tomorrow) and will end shortly after noon. The venue chosen for the patients comfort, it is the nearest function room to the Hospital

The Venue:-

The Cleveland,

Crumpsall Lane,

Crumpsall,
Manchester M8 5SR.

Get off the tram at Crumpsall walk up to Crumpsall Lane and turn right and the Cleveland is 500 yards on the left.

The Cleveland Tel: 0161-740-3175 Satnavs M8 5SR.

Report on the MM&SCT board meeting 25th February 2010

Paul Reed — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:33:43 +0000

NHS Manchester Liaison Network and a Service Users Liaison meeting will tale place upon St Patrick’s Day, at 10:30am prompt Being Chaired by Coun Martin Pagel. All Users and Members of The Public Are Warmly Welcomed Refreashments Will Be Given.

Report on the MM&SCT board meeting 25th February 2010

Alan Hartman Author of Report Elected Chairman of Manchester Users Network

For Manchester Users’ Network,Manchester Mental Health Watchdog and John Boyington CBE Head [MHIP]

How it was!

The board meetings of over 9 years, where, users, carer representatives and other representatives although not board members, were welcome to sit at the same table and participate fully in the meeting. This was very advantageous for the Trust being a service provider, it allowed the members to receive the needs of the service users, gain a considerate insight to problems and serious incidents which, members knew nothing about. It stopped duplication of services, which saved genuine efficiency savings. Also collectively improved communication, probity, transparency, joint working and bona fide user involvement.

The board meeting has seemed to decline into a feudal arrangement, with the hierarchy sitting at the table. It was sad to see this kind of superiority, inequality and exclusion. It brings back memories, when patients were not allowed to sit at the same table at meetings with service providers.

John Boyington CBE Chairman of The Commission

Members of the Public are only allowed to view the meeting, this also includes, groups, Users, Carers and links (Manchester Mental Health Watchdog), which have a substantial and valued interest in Mental Health providers and organisations that finance, monitor and inspect the Trust.

The Trust addressed the audience with the term “Members of the Public, which was perceived as ignoring valued representatives of groups within Mental Health in Manchester.

You can only ask questions at the latest one day before the board meeting. You are not allowed to comment at the board meetings answers or comment even if you are the author of the question! This meant that the questions were not answered adequately or parts not answered at all. e.g The question by Mainway. Taking away free tea and sandwiches! Do you think it’s fair that Directors and Managers who have many meetings and conferences also have many free lunches? This question was not answered! Another question by MUN over 82% of Mental Health Users who are charged at the Day Centres are in debt. You were not allowed to comment even though this was a very serious point that some users are now thousands of pounds in debt! It seems the Trust were defending themselves and not addressing, the views, needs, problems and facts to ascertain the correct information to improve mental health services for patients.

We are all human beings we all make mistakes and that includes Managers and Directors at board level. Allowing mistakes to be properly heard and sorted at any level in the Trust is crucial. Putting obstacles in the way leads to chaos and mistrust and above all poor mental health services.

It is certainly a worry if, when the Trust receive foundation status that the board meetings are to be arranged like this.

Recommendations

1] There should be twice yearly meetings where independent User Group representatives, LINKS and others can ask and discuss problems to all Board Members, (perhaps it needs a special board meeting).

2]When problems are not remedied at the Liaison meeting, the representative or group advocate should be allowed to state the unsolved problem at board level, which must be discussed adequately so a fair and reasonable decision can be made by the board.

3] The board needs to humanise the services and be more inclusive, flexible and diminish concerns by
Service Users that the trust are not showing openness, probity, equality or communication.

ALAN HARTMAN, CHAIR, MANCHESTER USERS’ NETWORK.

“Coun: John B.F. Grant Press Release “

manchesterusersnetwork — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:11:21 +0000

We have also included a press release sent out from the Lib Dem Health spokesman Coun: John Grant (Whally Range, Manchester) Grant, who served himself over twenty years as a Medical Doctor in the NHS issued the press release on the 17th November, 2009 in which he says that no proper consultation has be carried out concerning Manchester Citys Councils decision to Charge some patients for attending the Day Centres many of these patients have ended up in severe debt and have stopped their attendance.

: pictured: Coun: John B.F. Grant (Lin-Dems) Served Twenty Years As A NHS Doctor

Press Release :- Coun John Grant.

Manchester Liberal Democrats

Council ignores what mental health

day service users say

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesman Cllr John Grant has slammed Manchester City Council for completely ignoring everything the users of mental health day servicessaid when the council started to charge for these services. In December 2008 Manchester City Council’s report on “Fair Charges” for adult services extendedto include mental health services for the first time. In a big report the tiny section which related to day services for mental health service users went unnoticed by members of the council’s Health and Well-being Overview and Scrutiny Committee. When service users realised what was proposed they made the dangers of this proposal known. They called for an urgent review and the suspension of these charges while the review took place. They were allowed to make this statement to the Health Scrutiny Committee but there was no discussion and they were not given any assurances about response. An urgent review did not happen and charging was not suspended. All that has happened is that the committee has received the council’s annual review of its charging for services at last week’s health scrutiny committee. The report makes its clear the council has not attempted to assess the impact of charging on users of mental health day services in any way.

” HOW MANY MORE CUTS WILL WE RECEIVE ?”

Paul Reed — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:37:08 +0000

By: Paul Reed.

Jessica Williams Foundation Trust Director Gunning For Trust Status !

Yesterday, Wednesday 09th December, 2009 at a meeting held at Mainway. Occupational Therapy, Park House Jessica Williams Project Director for the Foundation Trust addressed members of Manchester Users Network.
She invited patients to become members of the proposed new Foundation Trust, and spoke of the benefits of Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust achieving the status of becoming a foundation Trust. However,
many patients did not feel assured that becoming a Foundation Trust would make any different to the very poor services that Manchester now offers anyone suffering from secondary mental health Illness. One patient who asked us not to publish their name said “We have become the forgotten patients, in the run up to all the talk of this Trust gaining Foundation status, I have not had a visit from my nurse for over eighteen weeks and I, if it were not for my fellow friends here today, I know I’d be back in hospital.” He went on to say, “Does it matter who is in charge of the Trust?” - “If we receive the services we had ten years ago, then I for one would be thankful. All I have seen is all the services I had, have now been taken away and what really does matter, the care of people in this City just disappear. “

Experts say cutting mental health programs could drive some patients into homeless shelters and hospital emergency departments, thus placing additional strain on NHS. At yesterday’s meeting Manchester Users Network members voted to send out a press release. (The content are published below)

Pictured Coun John B. F. Grant (Lib-Dems) A Former NHS Doctor With Over Twenty Years Service For The NHS

We have also included a press release sent out from the Lib Dem Health spokesman Coun: John Grant (Whally Range, Manchester). Grant, who served himself over twenty years as a Medical Doctor in the NHS, issued the press release on the 17th November, 2009 in which he says that no proper consultation has be carried out concerning Manchester Citys Councils decision to Charge some patients for attending the Day Centres. Many of these patients have ended up in severe debt and have stopped their attendance.

Manchester Users’ Network.

Press Release:-

The cuts stick out a mile in Mental health!! This will lead to risk and risk will lead to inevitable death.

Angry sufferers of severe and enduring mental illness in Manchester, say that the risk of becoming ill without any support or help is so obvious, it sticks out a mile! The Patients know It, but their views and what they say are totally ignored. The nurses and other Mental Health professionals know it, but are rigorously gagged. Sadly tragedies are certain to happen involving suicide and premature death, which include ordinary members of the public. Already suicides are extremely high in Manchester. People should not only blame the Government, but Manchester City Council and Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust, who are also directly responsible. The three main reasons for the savage cuts in the services are (i) The complicated bureaucratic “red tape”, since patients are unable to have access to mental health services, which causes the number of patients to be greatly reduced. (ii) Manchester City Council are greedily charging for mental health services, which many patient won’t use and they are unable to pay for, causing them to be in debt, resulting in them to go back into hospital due to severe illness. (iii) Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust are drastically diminishing therapeutic treatment services, because they are desperate to become a Foundation Trust status and need to be financially viable, if they couldn’t the Directors and Seniors managers would lose their jobs, and the Trust would cease to exist. The care of the patients would actually be transferred to another neighbouring Foundation Trust. Some of the typical examples of the severe diminution to services, are such as, the therapeutic activities in day centres being cut, acupuncture remedies cut, “Mainway”(Industrial therapy) cut , stopping the horticultural Centre Drop-in (for the mentally ill without any help at all), the withdrawing of lunches, teas etc for day patients and closing wards in hospitals, and particularly discharging ill patients prematurely from the community mental health teams, when they still need active support and supervision.

Cllr John Grant, Health Representative for the Lib Dems is vociferously angered by Manchester City Council not consulting Users of the Mental Health Services over charging patients, and is very concerned that they become seriously ill - see his letter attached!

MANCHESTER USERS’ NETWORK.

Contacts:-

Alan Hartman, Tel Mob 07719102380, Home (0161) 492 0790, Office (0161) 918 4343.
Alan Valentine (0161) 205 0118.
Paul Reed Mob 07748115989.
Les Swain, (SMUG)07921995479.
Helen Dunlop 0161 947 0541, Mob 07947232177.

Press Release :- Coun John Grant.

Manchester Liberal Democrats

Council ignores what mental health day service users say

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesman Cllr John Grant has slammed Manchester City Council for completely ignoring everything the users of mental health day services said when the council started to charge for these services. In December 2008 Manchester City Council’s report on “Fair Charges” for adult services extended to include mental health services for the first time. In a big report the tiny section which related to day services for mental health service users went unnoticed by members of the council’s Health and Well-being Overview and Scrutiny Committee. When service users realised what was proposed they made the dangers of this proposal known. They called for an urgent review and the suspension of these charges while the review took place. They were allowed to make this statement to the Health Scrutiny Committee but there was no discussion and they were not given any assurances about response.

An urgent review did not happen and charging was not suspended. All that has happened is that the committee has received the council’s annual review of its charging for services at last week’s health scrutiny committee. The report makes its clear the council has not attempted to assess the impact of charging on users of mental health day services in any way.

Press Release From M.U.N.:-