"Talking therapy"

Good evening hawknm93,

I'm the clinical lead at Rotherham Talking Therapies, my name is Faye. Although I can't see any of your personal details via Care Opinion (which is by design for privacy! I would advise everyone not to write anything identifiable) I'm pleased to virtually meet you from afar. I'm really glad that you've shared this feedback, and I would appreciate the opportunity to try and work together to figure out what's gone wrong here and make a plan for the future, if you're open to this.

Firstly, I'm sorry that the sessions you've had with us haven't been helpful, I certainly recognise that although we provide therapies that are evidence-based, they're not all going to be the right fit for everyone. Our mental health experience is unique to each of us, and one size definitely doesn't fit all. I'm sad to read that you didn't seem to have had the opportunity to talk about how you were finding the sessions, and that you were told it wasn't for you after you raised your concerns. I'm deducing from your comment about how you were told another mental health department would contact you that we might have submitted a referral to a different NHS team, but it seems like time has passed and you've not heard anything which isn't good at all.

You say that the only improvement you've experienced with your mental health over the past decade has been through lifestyle change, exercise and abstinence from medication. It's clear that you've put a lot of hard work into trying to improve how you feel, and it's a shame that the right therapy hasn't been available alongside this.

From what I'm reading, you've been informed by social services that you need to access mental health services, and when you've done this it hasn't been helpful, so you're stuck in a position where you're not fulfilling social service's request and you're not getting any therapy that is helpful. That's a really awful position to be in and I would be incredibly frustrated in your shoes. I'm sorry that mental health services seem to have been really hard to try and navigate, that's the last thing you need when you're going through a hard time.

Regarding the next steps, I have a few thoughts I'd like to share with you, if that's okay?

If you're willing, I would appreciate it if we could speak with one another, either over the telephone or video (Teams), so I can make sure I've understood your experience with the service and we can consider next steps. I can look into which service we referred you to, and investigate where your referral has gone. Although my computer system is based on Talking Therapies I can sometimes see information from other mental health services in Rotherham. I do have contacts with other teams and speak to them frequently so it would be no problem at all to look into this.

If it's the case that the specific type of therapy social services are requesting isn't available via the NHS, I can try and find out where it may be available, or I may be able to provide a letter to you evidencing that it isn't available via our service.

I understand that we don't offer every type of talking therapy within the service, but I can review your notes and check that we haven't missed anything regarding offering you further sessions or a different type of therapy.

If you're happy to speak, please could you give us a call on 03000 215108, let our admin workers know your name and date of birth so they can find you on our system, and ask for Faye the clinical lead to contact you? If you mention it's following on from a Care Opinion story I'm sure I'll figure out it's you. I will send you an SMS from your record with a date/time that I'll call, but if that time doesn't work for you we can change it. If admin aren't able to answer the phone please leave a message and they will pick it up.

I'm looking forward to speaking and to trying my best to support you with this, there's no pressure or rush from my side so feel free to get in touch whenever you're ready. But I do hope to speak with you soon. Take care.

Kindest regards,

Faye

Clinical Lead