"Ineffective and inaccessible mental health support"

The service effectively discriminates against working people. It does not offer 1-1 or times outside of 9-5 Monday-Friday, they expect you to attend weekly and then build it up to spending up to 3 FULL days a week there. To my mind, group therapy is a load of tosh - most counties have got rid of it as it’s not time effective for the patient, only the staff. It’s not efficient and it’s approach is out dated.

Broken arms aren’t treated as a group, broken toes aren’t either or warts or any other health problem so why this? Everyone’s needs are so different but this service has a ‘1 size fits all’ approach - which is exactly why it doesn’t work!

I went through an 18 month waiting list just to sit in a group and listen to other people’s problems. I’d leave the sessions with everyone else’s problems on my shoulders as well as my own. I also found it quiet triggering at times. Unfortunately (like with any group) some people like the sound of their own voices whilst others were too petrified to even talk - it’s a bad combination of ‘group’ dynamic..another good show example as to why the ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work. 

The facilitators would not speak to me 1-1 or really engage in conversation, group members (aka us patients) run the meetings and the facilitators are just there to ask the group questions, I would often leave completely confused by the aims and purpose of the session.

They do not have any flexibility - everything happens during the working week and there’s no support for childcare.  The service builds up therapy and eventually expects patients to go days at a time therefore is limited to those with school aged children and those in part time or no employment whatsoever. 

For those in full time employment like myself it’s impossible to access their full service - I managed to scrape together holiday entitlement to do 2 hours per week for 10 weeks.  The therapies can last up to 2 years!!!!! 

In my opinion more intense therapy is required than what is actually given. For what you get from Sitting around in a circle with 12 other people in 20 hours you could get in 10 minutes if 1-1...that’s how ‘watered down’ it is. 

The sooner Oxfordshire scrap the service and start to treat individuals as individuals and get out the airy fairy circle sitting world and in to the real world the better! 

The sad thing is - psychiatrists will tell you how great it will be for you (It seems to me like this is mainly because they don’t know how to deal with you and want rid of you) so if you’re like me you’ll believe them, wait 18 months and expect to leave there feeling better. I didn't. I left feeling disappointed and unfixable - that may sound incredibly harsh but I’d rather talk reality than paint pictures of things that just aren’t there!