Trafford Mental Health Services broken as we head for Mental Health Awareness Week

As we head towards Mental Health Awareness week which starts on Monday we had to do this article to address what is simply a scandal and one that will be making those with mental health issues worse.

Trafford’s Mental Health Services were already struggling before the pandemic and now completely broken after it and we are highlighting the issues people are facing on a daily basis whilst staff complain that their is no money.

We also wanted to highlight the lack of support for those with mental health issues with only one Advocacy Service who do only half of what TMHAS (Trafford Mental Health Advocacy Service) used to do.

During the pandemic we understand that agency workers or Locum workers were in place to cover psychiatrists and other staff at mental health units, these people will have no idea about a patient, no understanding of what a patient has got wrong with him or her and will cause more harm than good.

This insane decision meant many unwell people were struck off the list and was sent back to the GP, some if they were lucky was still able to get the medication however the help they needed was no longer around, some of these people had no support network and had to deal with things on their own.

The GP who are already stretched to the limit not because of Covid but because Trafford Council went housing crazy and forgot about other infrastructure one of them was the GP surgery, they did not increase in size, we are not aware of any newly built surgeries to cope with demand.

People who were kicked from secondary services now had only the GP who has little tools, they will try and get the patient back but with little or even no success unless you are a threat to yourself or too others which is insane we will go one further and say secondary services in Trafford should be checked out to make sure they are actually helping people who were already long term patients who are unwell.

All people have now is primary services and whilst it is something better than nothing it is just a plaster on a bad cut to those that had many years in secondary services.

We read one individual claiming on social media “They get us to be confident and happy then cut the rope so we end up back to where we started or worse.”

Whilst we know the lack of money is a factor in the bad decisions that have been made, to tell people that unless you are a threat to yourself or to others will damage them further, it is like they are saying “Until you kill someone or kill yourself we won’t even see you” and that is disgusting and of no use to anyone more so those that are vulnerable.

Mental Health Services have a duty of care for those that are very unwell or simply unwell, even those that have somehow got themselves to a fairly good state can relapse! we suggest to families of patients who have been all but dumped by services to complain to the CQC Care Quality Commission or go through Advocacy Focus

Although we have rightly slated the Mental Health Services more so secondary services (CMHT) not all things have gone wrong and we are aware a number of people are still getting the right care from either North or South teams in Trafford.

We also are aware of several social workers who are doing an outstanding job looking after their patients in what must be a trying time for them.

Some GP’s refer people on to Trafford Council Social Care however one of the social workers who we cannot name told us that she did not have anything to do with Mental Health! in that regard they are utterly useless.

For those reading this struggling we suggest to listen to Radio Alty Newshour on a Thursday afternoon at 12.30pm till 1.30pm where the host in the second part of the hour long show gives advice and techniques to help you out