This is a really poor service. The staff conducting the telephone assessments have a low skill level. As a patient you are expected to chase around them. There seems to be no understanding of the importance of reducing barriers to engagement. You get one chance to get it right with this service or you are out. The assessment process has at least two stages, both conducted on the telephone which is inappropriate for a number of people. This cannot be classed under any circumstances as a comprehensive assessment. I also do not believe it is is safe as people are poorly prepared, given no advice about its impact and left for their families to pick up the pieces - if they have one. The staff are disrespectful and unwelcoming. Examples of the way this service operates include: excluding people from the service if they don't answer one phone call. The phone call is not made at an agreed time and despite having given permission for a message to be left, no message was left. The service offer is effectively limited to low quality CBT. You have to complete this CBT in order to be offered anything else. This is a huge barrier for people who actually need a more intensive intervention. There is no flexibility on appointment times - so you have to agree appointments for weeks in advance which is impossible if you're a casual or shift work - or a single parent. If you don't accept this you're classed as non compliant and kicked out. Whoever commissioned this service appears to have absolutely no understanding of the basic minimum standards of psychological services and no understanding of the principles of engagement. My guess is that this service on the whole creates far more distress than it relieves. This is an utterly disgraceful piece of commissioning and provision.
"Poorly organised mechanistic and ineffective"
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