"We will have blood on our hands" as there are no suitable beds for a mentally ill teenager.

Cliff

I don't want to be too flippant, but all services, from the Police, Doctors, Schools, Mental health, Care for the old, and hospitals are getting worse. I won't go so far as to say the country has gone to the dogs but it has certainly seen better days. There is a general trend, perhaps to do with the increase in population over the last two decades, and the increase in costs in healthcare.  Honestly, I don't think it has much to do with Labour or Conservative governments. They make small ripples but the trend is in the same direction.

Bl4ckGryph0n

Whilst I agree in the main, I've also seen mainly in law enforcement and intelligence very bright and foreward thinking people who make real and sustainable difference. Unfortunately also met by dinosaurs who have no focus on the human element at all, very much focussed on their own rights opposed the service to be provided.

Bl4ckGryph0n

I'm glad to have learned that three beds have now been identified with a care assessment to be concluded tomorrow.

Shameful that it had to get to this with pressure from the media.

tapzilla2k

Liberal Democrats or Labour proposed to raise NI contributions by about 1p or 2p and to ring fence the money for Mental Health and Social Care. NHS Mental Health services require a massive injection of cash to stabilise them and get them running properly. The longer it's left, the more expensive it's going to be fix it.

NHS Mental Health budgets get continually raided by other parts of the NHS to prop up services. This is an area of the NHS that's always been a Cinderella service and now it's at the point of becoming unsafe for staff (mental health nurses are leaving the service, retention is something you don't hear Jeremy Hunt talk about very often if it all) and patients. It's reaching breaking point, this is something some of you here are just not getting. But I guess you won't until an NHS Mental Health Trust keels over and a crisis emerges. Until Mental Health Services are funded properly (and it really does mean ring fencing), mental health will simply not be taken seriously.
I've used NHS Mental Health Services since I was about 13 years old, I've never known things to be this bad. For somebody with a complex phenotype of Bipolar disorder unless I attempt suicide (not being dramatic, a friend only got crisis care after hanging off a motorway bridge), I won't get any help at all other than what my GP provides. Medications and traditional therapies don't really work for me and not for lack of trying on my part, so I'm shunted aside. The resources just aren't there to cope with demand.

As for Patient X, If they have found suitable beds, it likely means others are being shuffled aside.

Jezza99

Hate to break it to you, but neither of those parties won the last election. In fact no one proposing income tax rises ever does.

So as much as some people might wail about the need to spend yet more on the NHS, they are not willing to put their hands in their pockets to pay for it. The NHS cannot survive as a universal, tax payer funded, free at the point of delivery service , the demand is too great. Personal top up insurance and charges for appointments is the only way forward, there will be no "massive injection of cash" from the taxpayer.

Ruperts slippers

Is this not just a continuation of a long running issue, I remember being told by the GP there was a 6 month waiting list for CBT back in 1999/2000, they just wrote me prescriptions and left me to help myself, GF at the time was quite supportive. God knows what would have happened with a limited or non existent support network.
As for the NHS, the administration and management structure is poor, we could hand the NHS 200 billion and it would just use the money, there's no motivation to change behaviour, the commercial processes are all wrong, they really are in their own bubble.

Goooner

Yep, everyone polled agree tax rises to pay for the NHS are a great idea, so long as the tax rises are for other people.

tapzilla2k

Hate to break it to you, but an idea doesn't go away because a party or parties don't win an election. We have a hung parliament, nobody won as winning is defined as going past 326. So plenty of ideas will be up for debate in the commons and lords.

I'd gladly pay more tax for the NHS, as long as it goes with long needed reforms. Health Insurance is not the answer, as mental health won't be seen as a profitable means of operation beyond talking therapies. Paying for appointments ? That will just send people to A&E in droves.

That's how it's been, but it has gotten a lot worse now. Sometimes it's a miracle to get an assessment appointment, then like me they offer you therapy but only for a short time and with somebody whose still being trained. I have one friend who was initally offered 18 months of therapy, since reduced to 12 months. When in reality the therapy sessions should last for 2 years.

I'm lucky in that I have a good support network (I dropped off the radar for about a decade, barely saw anyone. Friends reacted like nothing had happened when I emerged from my hermit cave) and even more lucky that I got to see an Oxford University Professor who is a leading expert in mood disorders. Where as I know others who don't have very good support networks and who have complex mental health needs that are not being met.

Any increase in funding has to be attached to reforms of the way the NHS is managed. I would say it needs to be clinically lead, with appropriate checks and balances. Politicians prefer to say the NHS can do this and that, and never really say where the money is coming from the fear mentioning tax increases upsetting the Daily Mail and co. Much easier to borrow money and shunt the problem down the road for the next generation of Politicians who end up in Government to deal with.

For those saying a Health Insurance system would be better ? We'd end up with a two tier system, whereby those that can afford insurance will get the best treatments, while those that can't will have to face long waiting lists and older less effective treatments. In the end it'll hurt the economy as productivity will go down further due to prolonged ill health (it will also increase pressure on the DWP). You are only one accident away from being unable to work and the NHS usually steps in, fixes what's broken and gets people back on their feet and usually back to work in short order.  
Sometimes it doesn't work out that way.


Then they moan when they don't get the public services they expect. Pay peanuts, get monkeys running the show. While the organ grinder has his or her nose in the Westminster trough/gravy train.

Goooner

And therein lies the rub. Labour just want to increase taxes and throw more and more money at it. As soon as the Tories mention any sort of reform, there's much wailing and gnashing of teeth everywhere and social media goes into complete meltdown with shouts of "the tories want to destroy the NHS"

Jezza99

You can have your "idea" for as long as you like, point is, no one will vote for a government that promises to implement it.While you might be happy to pay more tax for the NHS (funny how almost everyone says that), I for one am not. And unfortunately for you, I am not in a minority of one, as election results prove. By the way, it was only the Lib Dems that proposed an increase in the basic rate, and they got absolutely nowhere.
Health insurance is not a dirty word, most continental countries have some form of top up insurance in addition to public funding, it works much better than the NHS. As far as charges are concerned, no they would not cause an increase in A&E visits if non-emergency cases presenting at A&E are charged for attention, as they should be anyway to relieve the pressure.