To: Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust and all concerned parties including Manchester City Council Joint Health & Scrutiny Committee, under the present chair of Manchester City Councillor: Bev Craig.
We would like this statement read out at the Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust: workshop meeting at the Trust HQ at Chorton House, on Monday 9th November 2015 and that copies be made available to all present.
Manchester Users Network leader and NSUN member, Alan Hartman warns of the deepening crisis in Mental Health Services that puts even more people at risk of suicide.
He states “the new round of £1.5m worth of cuts will hit more than 650 patients and a huge fear for service users is that services will not provide any therapeutic support but resort only to giving medications which can cause devastating side effects and can make people worse.”
A shadow minister has called for health secretary Jeremy Hunt to ‘urgently’ intervene over the crisis facing Manchester’s mental health services. Andrew Gwynne was speaking after the M.E.N. revealed £1.5m in frontline services are to be axed after the city’s mental health trust declared itself ‘no longer viable’.
Last week saw Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust [MMH&SCT} under the attention of the media for once again failing to give Manchester an A1 mental health service, despite spending huge amounts of public money in the attempt
A day-long public inquiry is to be held into the crisis facing Manchester’s mental health services – after we revealed the savage cuts facing frontline services.
Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust admits it is ‘no longer viable as an independent organisation’ after its finances passed the point of no return.
Cuts to Manchester’s mental health services will ’cause more deaths’, warned a local patient support group as they lobbied outside the Town Hall yesterday.
Manchester Users Network, a support system for patients accessing psychiatric services, lobbied ahead of a health scrutiny meeting that took place after a devastating £7million worth of cuts to its services.
It is reported that Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust will be abolished, as its financial position has become untenable.
Plans to cut £1.5m from mental health services in Manchester have been debated by councillors.
Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust has planned the savings, which would affect 664 patients not considered to be at high risk.
Support for people suffering conditions including chronic fatigue, depression and sexual problems could be withdrawn.
Paul Reed, of the Manchester Users Network, said one reason occupational-type therapies are so important is that patients are continuously seen by staff while there.
He said he had never had such a response from patients over any issue.
Referring to Karen Reissmann, the MHSC nurse who was sacked four years ago after speaking out against cuts within the trust, he said: “She has been proved right.
“If this is approved, it is going to be terrible for people.”
Manchester User’s Network have long campaigned for the government creation of a dedicated minister for mental health . So last week we were tweeting Jeremy Corbyns to please create a minister for mental health as we desperately need one. Even if that’s just to sort out the terrible services, Service users are presently receiving in Manchester under a Manchester Labour Scrutiny Committee
Specialist Manchester hospitals chosen under ‘Healthier Together’ plans
Manchester Royal Infirmary, Salford Royal, Royal Oldham and Stepping Hill have been unanimously chosen as the four ‘specialist’ hospitals in Greater Manchester as part of the ‘Healthier Together’ hospital reconfiguration.
The four locations were amongst 10 regional hospitals in the running to become ‘super hospitals’.