Mental health cannot be dragged from Cinderella existence without real effort and resource

THE Care Quality Commission has decided it is not appropriate to ask patients with mental health issues how practice and delivery of service is actually happening on our front door step.

It is already under attack on all fronts for its incompetence, ignorance and shambolic attitudes to care.

Why should this be and what do ministers want hidden from the wider public?

I have more than one reason for being not only interested, but increasingly worried, about what I have seen and experienced in mental health here in Cambridgeshire.

Compared with almost any other part of the NHS, those who suffer such miserable illness in these circumstances will find wards with totally inadequate levels of trained staff (especially at night and weekends).

What is the system’s reaction? Oh, mental health has to take its share of the “current financial pain” being inflicted on the NHS with cuts in the next three years of more than £14million to be found here in the county.

MPs of all parties repeatedly say that mental health needs to be dragged from its Cinderella existence. Yes, it does, but it cannot be done without real effort and resource.

Fine words get us nowhere.

GEOFFREY HEATHCOCK

Former chairman

Cambridgeshire Adult Social Care

and Health Scrutiny Committee

Cambridge