“The perception was that people with complex and chronic disabilities are ‘dumped’ on GPs, many of whom ‘lack the capacity and willingness to understand’ how to manage their care.”
Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust (GMMH) is under fire due to policy changes that are said to be limiting peer advocacy and service user involvement.
In January, GMMH published its latest service user and carer engagement policy (SCE), which changed the definition of “service user” to mean anyone who has been discharged from its mental health services within the last 12 months. Only they are allowed to be involved in decision making about GMMH services.
My first contact with Liverpool Mental Health Consortium (LMHC) was in February 2003, when I wrote them a very terse letter complaining bitterly that I had been unable to access a place at their national Snakes & Ladders Conference & denouncing them for exclusivity & poor communication.
Fast-forward 9 months, & they advertised a post with a person specification clearly stating that lived experience of mental distress was a ‘desirable quality’.
User involvement in professional education was pioneered in social work, where service user and carer involvement is required at all stages. Students, service users, carers and educators all strongly support such involvement and see it as a key way of improving the culture of practice.
MANCHESTER USER’S NETWORK PUBLIC MEETING (MANCHESTER MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS) With Guest Speakers: Luciana Berger MP Plus Ivan Lewis MP ( Now the Challenger for Mayor of Greater Manchester)
Manchester Users Network hosted a Public meeting at the Mechanics Institute in Manchester. Please watch this video of the event. MANCHESTER USER’S NETWORK PUBLIC MEETING (MANCHESTER MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS) With Guest Speakers: Luciana Berger MP (Berger is the great niece of the famous 20th centenary trade unionist Manny Shinwell ) Plus Ivan Lewis MP ( Now […]
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.”
Re: Patient and Public Involvement in Research Strategy January 2014
The National Survivor User Network (NSUN) was asked by the Manchester Users Network (one of our member groups), to provide comments on the above strategy.
This was in relation to the definition of ‘Service User’ on page 5 and the serious concerns from ‘service users’ that the definition used was both excluding and restrictive in terms of involvement.
