"I felt powerless and hopeless"

Hi hydragz39,

I’m Faye, I’m the Clinical Lead at Rotherham Talking Therapies. I’m so dismayed to read your feedback, and so sorry that this has been your experience with us. I’m immensely grateful you’ve shared it here and made me aware, thank you.

I’m on annual leave today but back at work tomorrow, I just wanted to pop on to say I’ve seen your review and to let you know I have set time aside tomorrow to have a proper read. I’ll reply properly tomorrow. I hope that’s okay.

Kindest regards,

Faye

Clinical Lead

Hello again hydragz39,

I'm back in work now, and have had chance to have a thorough read of your feedback, thank you for your patience with this.

I know I mentioned this yesterday, but I really appreciate you sharing your experience with Rotherham Talking Therapies, we're a large and busy service and as such I don't necessarily get to know the ins and outs of every patient's treatment. When people speak up and let me know that their experience has been really poor I feel very fortunate as it gives me the opportunity to get involved and see what I can do to try and make things right.

I apologise firstly for our slowness in contacting you to give you an update on treatment options. It's really disheartening as a patient to not be called when somebody has agreed to, and you certainly shouldn't have had to contact us to chase this up. If we are able to speak I will pick this up with your clinician to find out what caused this delay and have a conversation about timely communications, and what to do if something gets in the way of this.

It sounds like you contacted us because of symptoms of depression and anxiety, and that you were advised we can't offer any help with the anxiety because your worries and anxiety are valid and related to situational factors. Even when you asked about focusing on depression your clinician advised you would likely have to access this privately. I'm well aware that private therapy is a luxury unavailable to the majority, and I can't imagine the frustration and disappointment you might have felt hearing that we wouldn't be able to help after you had to chase us to get an update.

I'm really sorry, especially, that we left you wondering whether we had discriminated against you due to not being English. I completely understand you were left trying to work out why things turned out this way and searching for answers.

I would appreciate the opportunity to speak to you personally, if you're willing? I can set aside time to look into your referral and identify what took place during your time with the service, and explore what the rationale was for declining to offer treatment. There are occasions, unfortunately, where we are unable to offer therapy to patients who are seeking it from us. This might be because the treatments we offer aren't evidence-based for their problem, for example, but we would always try and discuss other alternatives if appropriate such as a different NHS service or an organisation/charity offering support. It sounds like in this case this hasn't happened, and I would like to take the time to review your notes properly to consider whether we've missed anything in terms of offering support to you.

Would that be okay? As Care Opinion is anonymous, please could you give us a call on 03000 215108 and leave your name and date of birth, and ask that this is passed onto Faye to contact you? Once I've got your details I'll send you an SMS with a time that I'll be giving you a call and will have looked into things before we speak. I hope we can find a way forward that enables you to access the support you need, and deserve. You are worthy of help, and I'm sorry we have caused you to feel so hopeless. I'm really looking forward to hearing from you.

Kindest regards,

Faye

Clinical Lead