So, "recovery model" is supposed to be, as far as I can make out, acknowledging that people can live a fulfilling life even without full symptom remission, and that people should be facilitated in doing that - so recovery doesn't just refer to full clinical recovery, but also to recovery in a more personal sense that can include using peer support, accessing things outside the mental health framework, etc. It's supposed to mean that for the individual, the focus should not just be on pharmacological and psychological "treatments", but on a whole-life basis.
They use the acronym CHIME, meaning Connectedness, Hope and optimism, Identity, Meaning and Empowerment. In many areas, trusts have set up Recovery Colleges, which offer services that are complementary to mental health services - peer support and mentoring, groups run by people with experience of mental health services, tools to help manage recovery, assistance in returning to activities that help people live meaningful lives, and such.
In practice, this seems to mean withdrawing CMHT support, refusing people psychological treatment and ongoing monitoring of psychiatric drugs, getting people to accept that they won't necessarily make a full clinical recovery (so much for hope), and getting people to use the cheaper "Recovery College" services in place of professional treatment.
In my area, the Recovery College was, entirely coincidentally apparently, set up at the same time as the mass discharges were happening, and my CPN told me all about it and how wonderful it was just before they discharged me. I was encouraged to play up certain problems I was having, as the service was in a pilot stage and had yet to be rolled out to people with all types of mental health problem.
I used the Recovery College services; of course I did, because there was nothing else. But the whole time, it was emphasised that this was not therapy, not a replacement for mental health care. But for all the people who had been discharged, it was a direct replacement. And the concepts of "peer mentoring" and "peer-led groups" seem to be a way of getting mentally ill people to work for free (after a while working for the service, a token few are taken on as paid employees, but apparently it's good for people to work for free as peer workers, because it aids their own recovery).
Secondary mental health services are needed by more people each year, and get less funding each year, so what else are they to do? But the recovery model is used as a cover for the mass discharges of people who need help. As far as I can work out, it originated in service user and survivor groups and their desire to take control of or acknowledge their primacy in their own lives, but it's been hijacked.
And I believe we are the unfortunate people who have to bear the consequences of this. I was discharged before I was ready, re-referred, discharged, re-referred, discharged - I can't help feeling that I'd have got to the point I'm at now (happy, well, and out of mental health services) if I'd had consistent care throughout the time I was unwell, as you need too.