Dame Sally Davies spoke about the time she ate hash cakes and hallucinated !
Earlier this week, England’s top doctor called for a ban on smoking in parks – to set a better example for children.
But yesterday, Dame Sally Davies spoke again about the time she ate hash cakes and hallucinated.
The chief medical officer, who has previously admitted taking cannabis at university, blamed the bad experience which made her stop dabbling with the illegal drug on ‘contaminants’ in an interview.
Millions of UK workers fear reporting mental health conditions !
Huge numbers of UK workers are hiding mental health conditions from their employers for fear of it affecting their job, according to Friends Life.
A poll from One Poll for the insurance firm, which surveyed more than 2,000 people, found that more than 50% of all workers believe being open about a common mental health problem would damage their career prospects.
The UK working-age population is more than 38 million, according to the Office for National Statistics.
So more than 19 million workers in the UK could be worried about reporting a common mental health problem to their employers.
Prioritising Mental Health Research
Many things are unprecedented about the run-up to next year’s general election, but perhaps one of the least anticipated is the prominence mental health has acquired. There has been something of a slow-motion pile-up aspect to mental health care over the past few years, as reports of the devastating effects of cuts, including chronic bed shortages and patients put at risk have kept on coming. Despite ministerial overtures lately about “parity of esteem” between mental and physical health, ask people in need of counselling or of a bed on an acute ward if provision is meeting needs and the answer will be an unequivocal “No”.
The head of Unison has urged NHS staff to ‘keep on fighting’ after six different unions in Manchester took part in the first nationwide health service walkout for 32 years.
The strike was triggered by the coalition government’s decision to refuse NHS staff the 1% pay rise recommended by an independent pay review body and sparked further outrage after the proposal to award MPs a 9% pay rise earlier this year.
Eugene St Leger, from Bramhall, Stockport, was rushed to Stepping Hill Hospital after his sister Alexandra found him face down in a pool of blood in the family’s cellar after he cut his neck with a piece of glass
One in four workers at Manchester’s mental health trust would not recommend the care to their loved ones, an official survey shows.
A quarter of staff at the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust said they would not recommend it to their friends or family, according to the first NHS Friends and Family Test.
More than a third of staff who took part in the survey also said they would not recommend it as a good place to work.
Interview with mental health advocate who worked in South East London Hospital Trust.
Discussion about the coercive nature of psychiatry, forced medication, stigma, restraint and Electro-convulsive therapy, The non-therapeutic experiences of many patients. Powerful statement.
The justice secretary says he wants to “really get to grips with the challenge of mental health in prisons” soon after next year’s general election. “I want every prisoner who needs it to have access to the best possible treatment. I want mental health to be the priority for our system,” he said in a speech on Monday to the Centre for Crime and Social Justice in London.
The core ideal of the NHS, that makes it so beloved by British people, is its promise of healthcare free for all. That promise has now become incompatible with the reality of austerity.
By 2020, the NHS will require an extra £30bn just to keep services at their present level. This strangulation of funds has seen the NHS Mental Health Trusts lose £253m, 2.3 per cent of their funding. These cuts translate into a dramatic loss of vital support for those with mental health conditions
Meeting with Commissioners AGENDA Wednesday 27th August 2014. 10.30am.
1. Examples & Experiences of poor or Zero-User Involvement.
2. Proposals for Genuine User Involvement (Proposals & Ideas), Independent User & Carers Forum, Mental Health Charter, Three step process of User Engagement & Consultation, Patient’s Council and ladder of participation.
3. Joint Steering Group meetings needed! (Trust, Commissioners, Local Authority, Independent Sector and Users & Carers.
4. Funding for Users’ Group.
5. A.O.B.
