"Referral system to Adult Mental Health Care"

I have been a service user of mental health services for the past 15 years, firstly in Early Intervention, Adult Mental Health and Perinatal and under GP care. I have complex psychiatric issues and have been an inpatient on two occasions. 

After being 'lost' in the mental health system my GP was unable to prescribe medication required to manage a condition until he received confirmation from a psychiatrist. 

My mental health care plan is also lost and out of date. 

Today I attended a referral appointment to regain access to services. 

I was very distressed as my patient history questionnaire, that I have completed on several occasions was not accessed prior my appointment. 

I had not received any communication to warn me that I would be expected to provide a full historical debrief at this meeting. 

As a consequence lots of traumatic experiences that have happened was revisited purely because the clinicians who were completing my referral hadn't read my notes nor copied over this assessment to my file. 

I was very agitated and distressed during my appointment to have to discuss historical abuse which is a major trigger for my severe psychiatric illness just to gain access to adult mental health services of which I have been a service user for 15 years. 

The whole referral system is flawed and has made my psychological state worse. 

I am still waiting until they review my case next week until they decide on the appropriate referral, I. E. GP lead, community based or as an outpatient and this distress could have been avoided by pre populating these questionnaires by information already held.