"Terrible mental health services"

A friend was in St Ann's for several months and I regularly visited her. It was a badly managed place with most of the wards shut down. At one point, people on Downhills ward were told the ward was closing in a few hours and that they would be transferred to other hospitals. My own experience of St Ann's, as an out-patient, has been sorely wanting. CBT, given by badly trained therapists, in a very 'box ticking' manner, is not a treatment for lifelong, debilitating anxiety and depression. It is in beautiful grounds, with some lovely buildings, and guess what? The plan is to sell off th land and build housing. It's worth remembering that Haringey used to have 6 hospitals; all but St Ann's has been sold off thus far, with this last NHS hospital in the borough about to meet the same fate. We're told that there will be a small building on the site which will be a hospital, but it is hard to believe that. Sometimes people do need in-patient care for mental health issues; sometimes mental health issues can take longer than 8-10 sessions to work out. Yes, mental health services are the 'Cinderella' service of the NHS, receiving poor funding, but the fact that other boroughs have managed their mental health provision so much better (Hackney, next door, springs to mind) reveals much of the ineptitude of the management of St Ann's.