"It's important to listen to real experiences and to act upon the feedback"

My partner disclosed to me he was feeling suicidal and had been having thoughts about killing himself, he had planned what to do and everything and just wanted me to know so it wasn't a shock.

I managed to persuade him to see the doctor the following morning and we managed to make an emergency appointment. My partner really did not want to seek any help and it was all I could do to persuade him to stay home from work the next day and see someone.

When we got to the doctors the doctor we saw at the community hospital in Cockermouth, although nice enough, seemed very awkward and like they did not know what to say to us. They were very businesslike and told us they'd make a referral to the crisis team, who we would hear from sometime that day.

This was around 11am and we heard from the crisis team around 7pm. Some sort of contact before then, just even to speak to my partner over the phone, would have been much appreciated. When someone is so low they are feeling suicidal, and when they have been scared to seek help anyway, spending the whole day hanging on like this only contributes to the situation.

All I kept thinking was, what would happen to someone who is alone and didn't have someone else supporting them. The crisis team asked us to go in that night at 9pm, and to go to Yewdale ward. We went there and were ringing the buzzer, and although staff were there, we could see them through the door, no one would answer or speak to us.

We went up to A&E to find out there how we access the crisis team but they did not have a clue. We had to explain why we were there in front of the rest of the people waiting in A&E. They directed us back to the Yewdale door and told us to ring the buzzer and someone would let us in. When we got there they told us to go round to the crisis team door and someone would come down and let us in. We did, no one came. We had to go back to the Yewdale door, again they told us someone would be coming down to us. We weren't turning up randomly, we had been told over the phone to go there at this time.

Eventually someone came down to see us. This whole process of just being allowed in and getting to sit and talk to someone took almost an hour, on a cold wintery night and when my partner was already upset and scared. If he had been alone he would have given up and not felt like he was being seen as worthy of supporting. The person we spoke to was very nice and no complaints with how they dealt with us, however I feel that the whole system of accessing the crisis team in the first place just needs looked at and made a lot smoother and more welcoming. Literally just as simple as imagine you were in that position, how might you be feeling, how might you feel after being sent from pillar to post, no one even coming to answer the door? From experience, some empathy is really needed. This feels like such a simple thing to have to point out.

After that, the crisis team saw us at home and regularly checked in on us, and my partner gradually started to feel a bit better just from having opened up and started talking about things. He had a psychological assessment at the same place we had the first crisis appointment and we faced the same issues again, of being left waiting outside, for someone to open the door to us. When the psychologist did eventually come down, they told us because it was starting later, the appointment would be shorter.

We were on time, they were late coming down to us. They had a cup of tea which was slightly annoying as it seemed like they were late because they were doing that. My partner discussed some really personal issues that he has, which he has only ever discussed with me before, they were at sometimes and unintentionally I think, mildly scoffing at some of the things he was talking about when he was explaining his patterns and behaviours.

A couple of times their reaction made him visibly embarrassed. He was referred to first step for counselling and had his initial appointment. His second appointment was arranged there and then but he realised it clashed with being away with work.

When he rang to change this appointment he had to go through the appointment booking centre and wait over a week for a response. He received a letter offering his next appointment which would be roughly a month / 5 weeks from his first appointment, after the counsellor said they should meet every 2 weeks.

It all just feels so inaccessible and like there are obstacles along the way. Imagine how much it takes for someone to ask for this help and to open up in the first place, without everything being so stilted and hard to reach. For someone to open up and really seek help they need to feel valued and like they matter, a lot of how things are operating currently does not do this, in fact the opposite. Another thing is the constant having to repeat the same story, as if notes have not been passed on between staff members or departments, think about this - again how would you feel in that position?

Lastly, I think it is really important to be reliable in this type of service, if you say you will ring on a certain day, do so even if it is to say there is nothing to report yet. Sometimes were hanging on, waiting to hear from the crisis team over the phone and they did not always ring when they said they would.

We would have been counting down until the phonecalls because we wanted to know what could happen next. This is quite jumbled as I am just writing things as I remember the experience but it's important to listen to real experiences and to act upon the feedback so I hope it is useful.