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No access to crisis team / line

Posted By MMM

"No access to crisis team / line"

About: Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust

(as a friend),

Christmas time is known to be the peak period for suicides. The MH Trust sole purpose for existence is to provide adequate care for those with serve enduring MH conditions. Their staff ( like all NHS staff) are employed to work shifts that include Christmas & New Year. 

Many people don't own or have credit for phones. Very many people don't pick up to unknown numbers. Many have significant problems using phones when acutely unwell and having to make continuous calls ups the risk.

Knowing this the Crisis Line and Camden Crisis team seem to believe that highly distressed at risk people should be required to make multiple calls leave multiple messages and have access to  a phone just in case a worker calls back

 My friend has huge problems as described above. He phoned the crisis line almost 100 times over the last few days and EVERY call went to answerphone. Every. Single Call. He had to borrow a phone so couldn't get a call back and he is too unwell to leave a message. He got really unwell more frightened was then sectioned out of this  area in the street wandering with no shoes on.

The managers here say but but but...and then talk about leaving a phone message when at this time of year twice as many staff should be rotered on - not less. It's what the Trust is meant to do. Its not an extra favour.

Someone else here listed dates and times and think that really helps to show  how poor this service is. This is how many times my friend asked for help and got answer phone every single time. Taken from his phone log;

That is 94 calls a highly distressed at risk person was expected to make and every single time an answer phone was the response. This isn't a charity this is a statutory service legally required to provide 24 hr a day crisis support 365 days a year.

I feel that there are clear management issues here. How didn't the busiest period of the  year get planned for? My friend's distress was made worse by this response.

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Responses

Response from Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust 6 years ago
Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 12/02/2018 at 12:23
Published on Care Opinion at 15:31

Dear MMM,

We are sorry to hear that your friend attempted to get in touch with the Camden Crisis Team via our Crisis Call Centre almost 100 times according to your review and that this took place over the Christmas period.

We agree Christmas can be a very difficult and troubling time for our service users and want to thank you for bringing this to our attention via the Care Opinion website.

Any feedback, whether positive or negative is helpful in aiding us in working towards improving our services.

The Crisis Call Centre at Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust operates a 24-hour service, seven days per week. It is operational throughout the year and there was no reduction in staffing during the Christmas and New Year period.

The Crisis Call Centre is the single point of access for Crisis Resolution Teams within the Trust and we aim to answer all calls in a timely fashion, as soon as possible. Our staffing is only finite however, so during busy period’s callers have access to our voicemail system. All voicemail messages are responded to within an hour or sooner if possible.

All calls are recorded for learning and development purposes and so we are able to understand quickly if service users and carers have had a poor experience.

The Crisis Call Centre is managed by the Crisis Resolution Team and operated by its clinicians. We chose to utilise clinical staff to ensure service users can speak with a mental health professional as soon as possible when in crisis.

We acknowledge the service can get very busy but feel that the volume of incoming calls is responded to well overall.

We would be very keen to look at this case of your friends care in more detail so hope you feel able to get in touch with the Crisis Call Centre manager directly.

Many thanks

None Fennell-Kelly
Crisis Call Centre Manager

Camden & Islington Crisis Resolution Team
Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust
Highgate Mental Health Centre
Dartmouth Park Hill, London N19 5NX

Telephone +44 (0)20 7561 4132
Mobile 0773 247 5195
Email: nonie.fennell-kelly@candi.nhs.uk
Online www.candi.nhs.uk

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