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"Left extremely vulnerable"

About: South Kensington & Chelsea Mental Health Centre

(as the patient),

I moved to Kensington and Chelsea area at the end of January, and was discharged from my previous community mental health hub at the end of April once my therapy sessions ended. 

Unfortunately this has now resulted in me being in receipt of absolutely zero support for the last 4 and a half months, in which time my mental health health has been left to significantly worsen along with increasing suicidal thoughts. 

Although I had an assessment with the South Kensington team in July, unfortunately it became clear to me after the assessment that the outcome had seemingly already been pre-decided before the assessment had taken place, rendering the assessment worthless in my opinion. It seems to me that the assessment was carried out purely for performative purposes, looking on paper as though something was being done, when in reality there seemed to be little interest or intention whatsoever in helping me. They did nothing. I was simply left a dreadful website, which mainly just listed private therapy providers (none of which I can afford) along with other absolutely useless suggestions for services that I have found abysmal in the past.

My GP has put in several referrals even since the assessment, but the South Kensington team turn down every single referral falsely claiming there is 'no change in presentation'. It seems that they will continue to refuse all and every referral, perhaps resulting in breaking my will to continue instead of offering any support.

Unfortunately I don't believe I was ever going to be assessed with an open mind, I am sure the outcome was already decided before the appointment had even taken place. After which time they simply said to go away and try again in 3 months. I am becoming increasingly suicidal by the day and my mental state has significantly worsened and severely deteriorated. I don't have any kind of support network after years of restrictions. This makes the lack of help and support even more terrifying, and I spend my days feeling extremely frightened, vulnerable, and in floods of tears daily. 

It's often said that these type of services aim to support people to avoid hospital admissions. But at the rate it's going it's extremely likely I would end up as an inpatient again, since no support whatsoever has been offered. If someone with severe suicidal thoughts is left without support in the community with no intervention then it only ends up creating more burden on the NHS when they are so unable to cope alone that they end up back in hospital. 

I don't want to make a complaint, as that is a totally pointless exercise. neither do I want another meaningless generic standardised response from PALS as a reply to me sharing my experience. Because for me we are way past that now. 

I want this to be seen by all of the staff at the South Kensington and Chelsea mental health team. This isn't going to go away.

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Responses

Response from Central and North West London Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust 2 years ago
Central and North West London Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
Submitted on 23/08/2021 at 17:29
Published on Care Opinion on 24/08/2021 at 11:46


Sorry to hear of your experience and would welcome an opportunity for you to meet with the Team / Service manager to discuss your experiences. You can contact the service directly on 0203 315 3577 or via email: southkcrt.cnwl@nhs.net. The service operates between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday.

Should you find yourself needing mental health support you can contact our Single Point of Access 24 hours per day, 7 days a week on 0800 0234 650. The single point of access is a telephone service that provides information, advice, referrals and crisis support.

Update posted by indarkness (the patient)

Thank you for your response. I phoned the team just now to try to arrange a meeting and read your response aloud, but the person I spoke to said they didn't know what I was talking about.

Please can you help me with this. It is incredibly difficult to trust your service after everything that has happened.

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