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Dehumanising assessment

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"Dehumanising assessment "

Just so many reasons why the assessment process is a bar to treatment…ultimately a box ticking exercise that is performed by seemingly unqualified staff - not a therapist in sight!

No real understanding of the investment it takes to reach out for help, no real understanding of the significance of trying to voice what’s going on. Just poor ‘put your problem into a sentence’ type questions which I ultimately couldn’t do, and was done for me by the telephone interview operative. I’m not felling heard or understood, nor hopeful of treatment- whenever that may be.

Feel like I’m going to climb back behind my protective outer shell and hope I can cope.

Not a great service sadly.

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Responses

Response from Sedman Unit 2 years ago
Sedman Unit

Submitted on 24/06/2021 at 11:29
Published on nhs.uk at 19:42

Dear Anonymous.

I am sorry that you have not had a positive experience of an assessment with our service.

As part of the national Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, we do have a set structure of questions that need to be asked at assessment. However, this should be done in a patient centred way and I am very sorry that you found this “dehumanising” and feeling more like a box ticking exercise.

I would like to assure you that all of our assessments are carried out by qualified practitioners, unless they are currently in training. If they are a trainee this should have been explained at the beginning of the assessment and these practitioners are closely supervised by qualified staff.

I empathise with how difficult it can be to reach out for support and how hard it can be to put into words what you are experiencing. I am sorry that you did not feel that the assessor understood this.

I would really like to be able to look into this further and provide feedback to staff. Please do contact me directly on 0300 7900 542 or through Dorset HealthCare Trust’s Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) FREEPHONE 0800 587 4997 or email dhc.pals@nhs.net.

Kind Regards

Kelly Colbeck, Service Manager, Steps 2 Wellbeing Bournemouth East and Christchurch locality

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