Mental Health Service in Sheffield - just plain mental!

There's an ongoing situation with someone deeply in need of help and support, who Nether Edge Hospital has admitted is potentially violent, who ends up sitting in someone else's house in quite a state, while Hospital staff faff around trying to decide whether to let this person come back to hospital on their own or let them stay in their own home while upset, confused and quite probably headed for or already in the midst of (another) psychotic episode, while concerned friends attempt to persuade them to get out and pick this person up - or worse scenario, send the Police.

The person is most likely under a section, so what are the Mental Health Services doing letting them wander off in a terrible state, on their own??? It isn't good enough. I know all the arguments for personal freedom, etc...but surely at some point they have to say that someone is not in a fit state and needs to be kept secure for their own safety. The system simply does NOT work, and this is why some mentally ill people get hurt or hurt others. It isn't the first time, and it won't be the last, I can guarantee it.

The Mental Health Service CANNOT rely on friends and neighbours to give people the care and attention they need when they are in such a bad place...they are simply not trained and equipped to do so, and something has to change!

Rant over. For now. But this cannot be allowed to continue.

So MHS send the Police...which is NOT what this person needs to be happening. It's insane and unfair on the ill person, and a large strain on the people taking the slack for a system that cannot seem to look after the very people it is set up to help.

There has to be a better way.

Nor is it a particularly good use of Police time...they are doubtless very busy, and have little time to be ferrying people to and from hospital. A time strain on both them and the people waiting to be relieved...

cosywolf

there maybe an on going situation at netheredge hospital someone maybe in need of help and support.

firstly this person is potentialy violent so what you are saying is that you would like two or three nurses to go out and bring a violent person back to a ward, may I ask what happens if this person does not want to go back to the ward whether it be on open ward or sercure, are the nurse to FORCEABLE bring them back?

secondly is this person sectioned because if he was then he would need a consultants permission to leave the ward.

if they have left the ward then nurse have no rights to bring them back, this is a police matter who are better equiped to deal with violence. And i am sorry to say cosywolf they do not get paid to be punched kicked or any other type of agression.

it may not be good enough to let someone wander off on there own but nurses are there to nurse not to police.

i do not know the circumstances of your situtation but feel you are being unfair to a group of people that try and do there best in a difficult situtation and doubley unfair to bring it to public knowledge without telling people all the facts there may be reason why this has happened.

But isn't there a loophole to it all about being admitted for examination if a persona is deemed a danger to themselves or others?

Pikey, you're right, the nurses are there to nurse, not to police. But when totally unqualified people in the community end up caring for someone who is seriously mentally ill because there is no-one else to do it...unrelated people with jobs and kids and other responsibilities; and when a person who is very ill and in desperate need of support is left to wander the streets of Sheffield; I'm sorry but you cannot tell me that the system is working. Not for the Mental Health staff, not for the patients, and not for the community.

I am NOT having a pop at the staff, but at the way the service is NOT working for anyone involved in it, either as staff, patients, or the general public

I admit that the mental health service isn't all it could be. For about a month I myself was left to just do as I pleased, when I should have been somewhere secure with no sharp objects and people who would regard my comments as a part of my illness, not just me being a total cow.

After a month, I was, however, sectioned and kept (against my will, might I add) in a hospital, which I now realise is where I needed to be. The system may not work right from the word go, but it works after a while..

Even I don't understand what the above statement means, so I don't expect anyone else to.

I didn't read Cozy's post as a pop at anybody in particular, but as a lament about how the system isn't cohesive - it just doesn't seem geared up to cope with these particular circumstances (and I'm hoping to god this isn't a thread about somebody I know)

there is a group of people who 'the system' effectively refuses to acknowledge exists. When the institutions were dispensed with in the eighties - turfing out all of the women who had had multiple out of wedlock births and had been branded 'mental' as a result, amongst other lame excuses for incarceration - they forgot that there are some patients who don't belong in prison (yet), and who still need to be in a secure environment for their own and their families' peace of mind and safety

I hope this gets sorted out Cozy

It would seem that under Section 4 of the Mental Health Act this person should have been removed:

Conditions

The grounds for the Application are the same as for Section 2, that the person:

is suffering from mental disorder of a nature or degree which warrants the detention of the patient in a hospital for assessment (or for assessment followed by medial treatment) for at least a limited period; and

he ought to be so detained in the interests of his own health and safety or with a view to the protection of other persons.

So I'm guessing a GP could do that?

Detained? now there's a wonderfully ambiguous word

Detained is something that usually happens after somebody arrives at a location isn't it?

So MHS send the Police...which is NOT what this person needs to be happening. It's insane and unfair on the ill person, and a large strain on the people taking the slack for a system that cannot seem to look after the very people it is set up to help.

 

There has to be a better way.

 

Nor is it a particularly good use of Police time...they are doubtless very busy, and have little time to be ferrying people to and from hospital. A time strain on both them and the people waiting to be relieved...

You might want to browse through this, Mind - the Mental Health Act 1983, and/or contact Mind themselves (if you haven't already). They should be able to advise and help.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, all of you.

Pikey, something else...there is nothing else here that I am holding back, as you suggest, that would make the situation more understandable.

It is simply the fact that even when too ill to make the choice rationally, people are often allowed to go home/ or not be taken into a safe environment because to do otherwise against their will would be infringing on their rights. And yes, I can see the difficulties there. It's a blurry line...but for their own safety sometimes a person needs to be taken in and held securely and given proper support until they are capable of looking after themselves again. In my opinion it is negligent to do otherwise, as their safety (and sometimes but not in this case, the safety of others) is at imminent risk. It is simply untenable in my opinion to leave the responsibility to untrained members of the public.

The person was not in this case being violent, just very confused, and therefore sending the police out THIS time, seemed inappropriate, though I realise staff shortages or other issues may have been to blame...I was not advocating that any staff should put themselves at risk. Or at least, no more risk than untrained Joe Public was taking by looking after them until someone arrived. I was frustrated because now I am concerned that the person in question will be allowed to leave again and will not go to the people who look after them and call for help because the police were called on them, when someone less intimidating would have better suited the situation.

No jabs at anyone. Just the system, and growing frustration.

My sister was on a section at NetherEdge a few years ago.They were useless. If she wanted to leave it was easy,this was when she was in a really vunerable state,in her mind being controlled by ghosts,who instructed her to do ridiculous,sometimes violent things.She was suicidal and needed proffesional help.All they seem to do is sedate them.

I was really dissapointed at the after care,when her 28 day section ended they just discharge her.I think she might of had occasional contact from a social worker,or cpn.

These days she's generaly o.k,she's still on medication,but she still has lapses where she goes a bit odd, blames the ghosts for whatever,and gets quite angry that she was ever sectioned and blanks out any of the reasons/issues that got her there.