"Services "

I read through these reviews before attending the Clinic and like others assumed that some of these reviews were from people who maybe have far too high expectations. I was wrong!!

My initial assessment was great and the nurse was very friendly and actually very caring, no faults there are all. They were thorough and in depth and made me feel finally I may be safe. What shocked me was that the next step was to wait nearly 2.5 months for further appointment which came in the form of a quick phone call (Understandable due to Covid). However appointments are basically spaced out by months and not weeks which leaves me suffering with no actual help or service. Where is the service part?, where are the therapies?, where is the actual help??. A quick chat every few months isn’t going to help with anyone. Even before Covid this was the case.

I actually feel sorry for the staff here because they don’t have any services to offer anyone and are left having to do the best they can with an extreme limited resource, which is ironic considering that the clinic is a RESOURCE centre. Also to need to spread appointments out by 2.5 months when someone is seriously suicidal shows just how utterly stretched the staff are.

I’m going to be brutally honest here, this experience has left me feeling utterly hopeless. If I can’t get help here this is the end of the line. There is nowhere else to go to get help and this has made me feel very unsafe and scared. No wonder people result to drastic measures to help themselves - Yes I’ve had to consider the worst due to feeling hopeless.

I am told by the staff here that there is “no magic button” and I wasn’t expecting there to be, but I was expecting some kind of help. I think I can take from this that if you can’t help yourself you are doomed.

I can also take it that the NHS “Every Mind Matters” campaign is to be people to look after eachother and help eachother because the NHS simply doesn’t have the funds to look after or even offer a service to people with mental health issues unless they are very very seriously ill or a danger. If you don’t fall within that category then there is nothing they can offer you other than a quick chat...

I feel sorry for the staff and I don’t blame them at all, I can simply see that their are serious risks with the service being as limited as it is to those reaching out for help and struggling to cope like myself.

I hope they can get more staff, some services and funding to take the pressure off both staff and patients and have some kind of safeguarding for suicidal patients which isn’t there at the moment. Not even via a quick follow up call.

One last thing I’d like to add is that the staff are friendly and caring in my experience...this is not a reflection on them.