To think it is too hard to get someone sectioned

[fratricidalwoman]

It seems that there is a very low threshold for capacity and even if this is not passed help isn’t always forthcoming. Or am I missing something?

fratricidalwoman

I know you are not asking for advice but is it possible that the person you are talking about had a mental capacity assessment today rather than a mental health act assessment?

I only ask because the former is often a lot less structured and if you have serious concerns about the outcome it may be you have some opportunity to ask for further assessment depending on the circumstances.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but if someone is sectioned, ever, this will have life long effects on them. Some countries won't give them a visa if they wish to travel there. Getting insurance (of various kinds) can become impossible. Some jobs will not be available to you.

This is the case even if your MH crisis is years in the past and you have been stable for a long time. I think it's important that there are safeguards in place to make sure this can't happen to anyone lightly.

It's really due to lack of funding and resources. It's truly shocking.

We have a crisis team in crisis locally and thwy have failed a very-imminently-in-dnager relative repeatedly (once they set fire to the kitchen, another time to their fingers, often found wandering....)

Crisis team are just too short staffed here. 2 people overnight to care for all the emergencies as well as drug runs and trying to support. I was told to twll my truly psychotic relative to try "relaxation exercises" when she was non verbal l, didn't recognise me and didn't know where she was....

It's true it's changes so much in the last 10 years. The lack of support is truly mind boggling at all levels through the system from children's psych assessments to basic mental health care to complete lack of staff for those in crisis.

AND beds!!!! There are regularly none in my county. How does it help to send a scared psychotic person literally a strange place in another country (by van at midnight for 2 hours from hospital in one case.. They needed sleep and care not bindling across country at night.)

It's truly at breaking point but only those in or close to the system know it or care. And privatization by the back door....

I find it sickening.

If they're lacking capacity (rather than having a mental illness that causes risk to themselves or others ) they're more likely to go for a DOLS than a section, particularly in things like dementia where there's no effective treatment which is required under the MHA (plus care homes don't need to be funded by the NHS under DOLS, where they do under section).

Additionally, people can have capacity for one thing and not another. I have a relative who can make some decisions about her treatment, but has no ability to make decisions about her finances and has provision in place solely for that.

It's difficult OP, but you need to figure out what you want to get out of it. It may be that you need to aim down another route.

I think if we had better mental health care overall, far fewer people would need to be sectioned in the first place, which would reduce the strain on the NHS for beds.

I have a friend who is currently sectioned. Visiting hours are late afternoon / evening. There are no groups / activities / counselling opportunities diring the day. So she essentially spends all her time alone with her delusions, getting more and more unwell. If they put some resources into actively treating g her, rather than just locking her up, they’d be able to discharge her far sooner and free up the space for someone else!

This thread is truly eye opening, shocking that people can't get the help they need.
There's a horrible lack of understanding about mental health. If you break a leg, you can see it, or have a heart attack, it's physical.
If you suddenly start not thinking straight, who actually knows or cares?

There are no groups / activities / counselling opportunities diring the day. So she essentially spends all her time alone with her delusions, getting more and more unwell. If they put some resources into actively treating her, rather than just locking her up, they’d be able to discharge her far sooner and free up the space for someone else!

What's the point in just locking up? As you say, the better way to better mental health is to nurture it. Depending on what your mental health problem is, socialising can be a good thing.
Nurture, not just lock away.

I feel so sad reading this thread. So many examples of being unable to get help due to lack of funding

Pumpkin - when said relative was first unwell 20 years ago there wpuld be OTs visit the wards and decent activities daily.

Now it's only the very very unwell who go to our local unit and so many aren't able to engage and then are let go far too early (beds) instead of supported to recover. Of course relapse happens...

Now there's hardly any decent activities (nogsaws on the ward...) shorter stays etc.

There was one incredible hospital that relative went to with an open access OT room. Much smaller, more community like, much easier place to be and visit and less institutional feelikng. It's being closed :(

It's far harder than someone being seen as a danger to themselves or others, ime it is only actioned when someone has actually DONE something rather than the risk of them doing it, that is they actually have to have attacked someone or multiple suicide attempts. The system is so underfunded as to barely exist.

It's far harder than someone being seen as a danger to themselves or others, ime it is only actioned when someone has actually DONE something rather than the risk of them doing it, that is they actually have to have attacked someone

My friend was sectioned a couple of years ago, and he hadn't harmed anyone. He was stalking my then SIL though!

He was properly delusional in a very amusing way. He removed all the toilet and bathroom doors in his house so he could spot the tiny drones the security services were sending up through the sewers. And he was able to prove, scientifically, that God didn't exist, which would bring about the downfall of the monarchy because they only hold their position by virtue of divine right.

I'll go out on a limb and say that I think the whole system of mental health care in this country is deeply flawed.

I'm not sure that it's flawed in principle, but it is desperately under-funded.

Two years ago, almost to the day, staff in Sussex were trying to get a bed in an acute unit for someone, and the nearest available NHS bed was in Glasgow. Community MH services here have been decimated and staff are burned out. Very unwell people can go weeks without seeing a CPN or OT.

The services in both the areas that my brother has lived in have been far, far better than here, but still only adequate imo.

I think MH services have been neglected partly because resources seem to be prioritised where outcomes are easily measurable. You can count waiting times for surgery, cancer survival rates, cardiac mortality etc but you can't count the number of people who didn't kill themselves or didn't end up being sectioned because of appropriate and prompt community interventions.

*My friend was sectioned a couple of years ago, and he hadn't harmed anyone. He was stalking my then SIL though!

He was properly delusional in a very amusing way. He removed all the toilet and bathroom doors in his house so he could spot the tiny drones the security services were sending up through the sewers. And he was able to prove, scientifically, that God didn't exist, which would bring about the downfall of the monarchy because they only hold their position by virtue of divine right.*

Forgive me if I don't share your amusement at psychotic episodes, Lack of any available help and a prolonged psychotic episode for my sister resulted in her death in a shocking way that I won't get into here. My sister also thought people were spying on her in her own home and so on - truly terrifying for someone who has lost the faculty to realize they are ill.

I had no experience of serious mental illness until my sister became ill, I was like the majority who think there is help out there - if someone gets it they are lucky, in some areas it is non-existent due to lack of resources. There are many people who should be sectioned but they aren't because there is no-where to put the sectioned. ime the police did the most in trying to get my sister help with all the agencies to no avail. They are frontline mental health services now.

I don't think it's too hard to get someone sectioned, but I do think it can be to difficult to get access to mental health services. Particularly camhs in my area.

mirime

You have no idea what you are talking about You think'?????? Do you actually have any first hand experience of mental health services?

I’ve resorted to gallows humour myself at times but I do have to agree with Amelia

Inappropriate and unpleasant.

Op and Waffles...hearing you both loud and clear. My brother is a paranoid schizophrenic. We can't do anything to help him as he's not "an imminent danger to himself or others" so we just have to sit back and watch as he explodes his whole fucking life.
We can only hope that he gets jailed before he kills himself.

*or somebody else

Amelia, I'm so sorry.

You have to be a threat to other people now rather than yourself and other people. Yes it’s shit

Not true, gamerchick

My MIL was sectioned earlier this year for being a danger to herself cos she wouldn’t eat or drink.

No no of course not, it must have been my imagination to hear those words. Yes.

There was a man pulled from our cliffs earlier, second week in a row. He likes to overdose his insulin and place himself on the edge of somewhere. He doesn’t meet the criteria for a section.

Or maybe he’s imagining it as well?

Or just maybe, things aren’t the same all over the country or just maybe things aren’t the same now as they were the last time you tried to get someone sectioned?

I’ve dealt with 114 sucide attempts and that’s just the bare bones. When you are at that level, come back and tell me it’s.not.fucking.true.

*suicide

gamerchick There’s more to that than meeting the criteria of “sectioning” (hate that terminology). Not everyone who is at risk to themselves will meet the criteria.

To go back to the OP, I don’t agree with your suggestion but I have so much empathy with your predicament. What underlies most of people’s frustrations isn’t the law but the actual funding or rather the lack of funding. If services could meaningfully engage with mentally unwell people in the community, it shouldn’t get to this point for many patients. Of course there will always be those who need inpatient treatment. Sadly, even once they are on the ward, families and friends soon realise that it’s very short term and it’s rarely a solution.

I have years of experience as both a mental health inpatient and outpatient and later, I worked in MH services. I never would again, for the sake of my own sanity but I work alongside them and they are struggling due to lack of funding and increasing need. It’s a disgrace.

I think some people believe getting someone sectioned is the answer when other mh services would be far more beneficial

The impact on someone can be huge and ongoing and could have been prevented long before

I am not sure the system should change regarding being sectioned but the cuts backs and lack of services are in desperate need of more resources

gamerchick - not sure if it's changed in the last three years (may well have done) but I was sectioned as a danger to myself, and not others.

Suspect lots of variation between locations, NHS trusts and even individual doctors.